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After spending over an hour at a Barnes and Noble store today - asking questions, reading on the Nook, etc - I will definitely choose the Nook over Amazon's Kindle. Here are my reasons why.

1. Kindle is proprietary - you can ONLY use it with books bought on Amazon.
The Nook is "open source" which means you can read e-books purchased or loaned from libraries where available with e-book functionality - including on Amazon.

That means that if Amazon puts an e-book on sale, you can purchase it for your Nook. But if Barnes and Noble or any other e-seller does, you cannot use it on the Kindle. And there are libraries that will lend e-books. The main Hunstville Library witll according to B&N. That's a big deal and is my main reason to choose the Nook.

2. Both of them have the same internal storage (2 gig). BUT the Kindle is not expandable. So if you use up the storage, you need to delete books to add more. The B&N Nook is expandle - and you can replace insdie to go from 2 to 8 gig. How kewl is that?

3. The Nook has 2 versions. The less expensive one is wifi only and (at least here in bama) only available online. The one comparable to the Kindle in price has both 3G and wifi. The Kindle only has 3G.

Now, let me explain a bit. The wifi means I can connect the Nook by using a wifi connection. So, if 3g isn't available, I can still connect anywhere I can take this online. Like using my MiFi wifi - will connect it. Or if you are traveling and staying at a park with a wifi connection, you can use that connection to go on.

Both have what they are calling "beta" browsers. I don't know how well the Kindle one works. I wouldn't recommend or want to try doing major browsing on one, but I did test, and could check my email on their. That means if I didn't have my computer, but had that with at any wifi connection, I could go online. That's pretty kewl.

4. Sharing Books. Kindle has no book sharing allowed. B&N will allow sharing, however, they have to follow the publishers rules. Therefore not all books can be shared and the publishers that are allowing sharing are limiting i to one time per book and a 14 day period. Still better than not having the option - and something that I would use with friends/family.

One of the things I really liked that is probably the same on both - is being able to change the text size. If I want to read in bed, I can make the text size a bit bigger and don't need my glasses. Actually I can read without them now, too, and do with "real" books - but that will make it easier.

Someone was curious about whether books could go from reading to listening. No. You'd have to purchase them that way. That may be in some future technology, but not yet - as it would probably be some type of computer generated voice to do that and now audio books are actually read, which is better.

But, on the Nook (I don't know about this on the Kindle) you can listen to music at the same time you read. Doubt I'd ever use that, but I know people who would.

Oh, yes, both can be connected to your computer - or read on your I-phone and other devices. I believe, if my memory serves me, that the Nook is available on some devices that Kindle isn't - but wasn't really interested in that for me, so didn't take notes on it.

I'm probably missing some points I discussed with them - but #1 above puts the Nook heads and shoulders above Kindle, for me.

Thanks for that info.

I've been impressed with the Nook too, have several drivers at work
that have them and one of my driver friends just got the new one that
was internet capable.

I did a search on Nook vs Kindle so am sharing what I read from experts and personal owners. Here is just a few things that stood out to me. Beth may address some of these as she now has firsthand knowledge.

It seems the biggest drawback with the Nook is that it's slow to boot up/turn pages/download books etc.
It also makes a click every time you turn pages. I would like to think it has setting to turn that feature off.

A con with Kindle seems to be that the new Kindle 2 doesn't have the SD slot for saving books so you are limited to the size of it's 'hard drive?', or whatever it uses.
Now I was under the impression that google actually saves your books for you so you never have to worry about losing them, but then again, perhaps you are limited as to how much space google will allow you to use.

I do like the color screen on the Nook, but don't know how important that would be overall. (on edit: color portion is just the lower section of screen.)
I do like the fact that the keyboard on the Nook is intigrated into the screen vs the keys on the lower third of the Kindle that seems like a person would always be pressing as they hold the device.

Kindle can be used anywhere you get ATandT coverage.

Nook battery has a shorter life when using the WiFi feature. It read that Nook users need to turn this feature off when not needing it.

I read that not all books you use on the Nook can be loaned out. There is a specific list.

video to watch, scroll down, left side:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/techn ... pogue.html

The shorter life - is about 10 days compared to 14 - I think that's not worth mentioning.

Both use the AT&T network - so that's equal. But makes another point for me with the wifi capabilities of the Nook - as I can use it through the wifi on my Verizon MiFi card.

I heard no clicks in turning pages, and the pages turned immediately - no slowness there.

Google has nothing to do with saving your pages, books - they have nothing to do with either. Maybe Amazon saves them for you - but you are still limited to what the Kindle itself will hold - without being able to expand like you can on the Nook.

To me, I consider Kindle - unless they change their formatting - akin to Betamax and 8-tracks - it will lose out because they didn't use the formatting that is universal. Eventually. They are trying to keep it all in-house. Force you to buy from them. And in so doing, they make me take the Nook - where I can get my e-books anywhere - including from them.

I am very interested in e-readers so this info is very helpful. I too am completely turned off by Amazon's proprietary stance. What I really want is the ability to import my own (not newly purchased) books I have scanned in pdf format. I have a cache of well-loved favorites and I would love to get them into electronic format and get rid of the paper. I was thinking of getting a stand-alone scanner, take the book apart and feed in the pages. But it is only worth the effort if I can them upload them to an e-reader.

B&N has a bunch of free classics right now: Free E-Classics at B&N

Many, many there I'd like to have again.

Beth, it sounds like you've talked yourself into getting the Nook. Will you be purchasing one soon? I'd be interested in how you like it as a user.
So far I don't think anyone here has a Kindle to give us feedback. I'd really like to hear from anyone if you have one.

Lenora,
I will be buying the Nook - just probably not for another month, maybe longer. Reason? I have a lot of books to read here - and I'm on a budget - going to fit that in Maybe sooner than I think - you never know I loved using it in the store, though. I do know someone with the Kindle who loves it. She wishes she had known about the Nook - just to be able to get books more places - and she's considering replacing her Kindle with the Nook - just not yet.

Ok, I just found out that all the Target stores in my area carry Kindles! My closest Target is in the same strip mall as the Barnes and Noble. Guess I'll be doing some comparison shopping soon!

Didn't want to start a new thread so I'll tag on to yours Beth. Hope that's okay. I listen and read Kim Komando all the time (Digital Goddess) anyway here is some info on free ebooks.
http://www.komando.com/columns/index.as ... 820&page=1

Thanks, that was interesting and informative.