A New Nook: Competition is a Good Thing

I’m a Kindle girl all the way, but the new Nook that Barnes and Noble launched on the 24th has drawn my interest. It looks like it was built to go head to head with the Kindle, the undisputed leader in the e-reader market. It’s exciting to see the developments in this rather young industry. Barnes and Noble seems to be focusing on reader experience with this new Nook and I’m curious to see how this affects other e-reader developers.

My first impressions? It looks squat. I can’t get my head around the funny shape of it. Other than that, I think it’s a wise decision to go back to E-Ink. When I was first looking at getting an e-reader, I eliminated the Nook Color because of the display. After sitting in front of a computer all day, the last thing I want is to be staring at a back lit screen to read; it’s too strenuous on the eyes.

The touchscreen component is a significant differentiation between the Kindle and this new Nook. When I got my Kindle, I thought the lack of a touchscreen would frustrate me, but it didn’t. However, I think this could win over a lot of people. Within the last few years everything has gone touchscreen and it’s the type of technology that consumers are becoming more comfortable with. If you have a touchscreen phone, it makes you want more things in your life to be touchscreen. My only concern here is smudging. I’m fanatical about people not touching my Kindle screen, it drives me nuts, so I don’t know how I would fare with a touchscreen e-reader.

The battery is supposed to last twice as long as a Kindle’s. That sounds pretty amazing because I rarely charge my Kindle. In fact, since I got it at the beginning of the year I’ve only had to “charge” it once, it’s done fine just charging from me connecting it to my computer to transfer files. It will be interesting to see if the Nook lives up to its battery hype.

Now for the feature that I find the most exciting: you can scan through books. This has, by far, been the biggest downside to reading on a Kindle; there is no way to effectively thumb through a book. This new Nook promises that by holding down the button to turn the pages you’ll be able to scan through the book. I can’t wait to see that in action.

Some people will be interested in the fact that you can personalize your screensaver on the Nook. This is something that can’t be done on a Kindle without tampering with it. This isn’t a huge deal to me, but I know some people like that extra touch and I think it was a huge oversight on Amazon’s part with the Kindle.

Like the Nook Color, this Nook comes with wi-fi, but no 3G. For me, that is a huge downside. I haven’t ever used my Kindle’s wi-fi, only the 3G and that’s mainly on the road. When traveling it’s just more convenient to connect to a 3G network than to drive around looking for an open wi-fi connection.

All in all, I think this was a great move by Barnes and Noble. The style and price of it puts it as a direct competitor to the Kindle. If there is anyway to dethrone the Kindle, this is the way to do it. With tablets becoming more and more popular and easier to get, I think the Nook Color is going to lose a lot of its appeal. It’s too flashy and bulky for just an e-reader, but it’s not full functioned enough to be a tablet (discarding any tampering that may be done by consumers).

I can’t wait to get my hands on this new Nook and play with it. My husband thinks I should have one since I will be publishing an ebook on it, and I tend to agree . Actually, my husband spoils me rotten and is as much (if not more so) of a tech and gadget lover as I am. I don’t anticipate I’ll be switching loyalties from the Kindle yet, but all Kindle users should be excited about this new Nook. It means that Amazon is going to be forced to up its game. While I have faith in Amazon’s development team, having an e-reader that is nipping at the Kindle’s heels can only force all e-readers to improve and bring out new innovations.

What do you think of the new Nook? Are you going to be giving it a try? Let me know!