Who here owns an e-reader, like a nook or kindle?

[Yetra Flam]

I know a lot of people are opposed to these, because it goes against blah blah blah traditional book reading blah blah blah.
HOWEVER For the sake of convenience and saving space, I am thinking of purchasing one. Those who have used them, which do you think is the best?

[hardnox71]

My wife has been looking at e-readers for the last week or so and she has decided on a kindle. Mainly because of the price ($114) and because kindle is on amazon. Nook, for example, is on Barnes and Noble and just doesn't have the same kind of book availability that amazon has and the damn thing is $250, to boot!

[Adam]

I've used a kindle. They're not bad actually, it is easy to read off other than a backlit screen.

From a green point of view they are good for the environment to as long as you're a big enough reader. Unless you use a library then that'd win.

I know battery life is good etc but for a long journey or away from home for a while I dunno - with books you feel a little bit more free. You can throw a book in my bag or stuff it in ya pocket, I'm not sure I'd carry another gadget around with me.

But I am a fan of things that do one thing really well. Smart phones are great but they don't do one thing particularly well except being able to do lots of things. Kindles do.

[paul jones]

Waste of money because when you're stranded on a desert island you might have some books with you but no powerpoints.

[Adam]

^easily solved. Make sure you a solar charger and instead of having only a few books you could possibly carry, you could have 1000s in the space of one.

And who gets stranded on deserts islands these days?

[A. Chimendez]

I've done some research about the two as I plan on getting my wife one. We decided on the nook for a couple reason.

Mostly because it has more features. Also, a friend of ours has one and certain books they can "borrow" to each other. Pretty cool.

We have some Barnes and Nobles in the area (a lot actually) and I guess they have free book fridays, plus you can go into the store and read certain books for like an hour or 2 hours to decide if you want it.

Plus, color. I appreciate that the kindle has the e-ink, but the display just underwhelms me I guess.

[Documad]

It's a super personal decision. I've got tons of friends with them. I am on my third kindle. I also have a nook. I love the kindle and hate the nook. I've got a friend who loves the ipad.

Why I don't like the nook: I don't want to read off a backlit screen, in theory I can get library books but there are hardly any available and there's a long wait list, it's difficult for me to get a wifi signal that works well enough to download a book when I want to at a coffee shop, etc., I don't like having to turn pages by wiping my finger on the screen because it either changes pages when I don't want it to or doesn't when I want it to, it's heavy to hold and makes my hand cramp, yet because it's backlit it's not comfortable to read when it's laying flat on the table next to me. And when you get a book for the nook via my library, when it finally is available you only get two days to download it and you only get to read it for 3 weeks and it never comes at a good time, or all the books on reserve come at once. (the main reason I got a nook was because the kindle doesn't work with library books and I feel conned.)

I had the first kindle and I'm on my third. I have the small one. One broke under warranty and was replaced. The second broke after the warranty ended. When they die, they just go for no reason and that's it. Books used to be a lot cheaper and most were available when the book was first released. Now popular books cost more than $10 and many titles aren't available until several months after release. I still get almost all new releases at the library. Plus a hardcover book from Amazon is probably about the same price as on the kindle now that they no longer have the $10 cap. So it's not a cost savings at all. The reason I still love a kindle despite all that is I'm the kind of person who wants to read all the time when I travel and I like to skip from book to book. I'm usually reading 5-6 at once. So it's PERFECT for me. Battery life on the kindle is really long. It's really short on the nook. Lately I've downloaded a lot of free books, but I'll still get sucked into the occasional $14 book. :o The most I spent was $45 but it was an out of print book I couldn't even find at a library. The kindle downloads books in the snap of a finger, but I've wondered if they're going to start charging extra for whispernet at some point.

But mainly it depends on which screen you're comfortable reading. I have friends who hate the kindle's screen. I think they're insane. I like to read outside in sunlight and I like the font on the kindle better. Also I had eye surgery a while ago and sometimes have vision problems and you can adjust the size of the font on the kindle from really big to really small. But the nook can do more tricks with the internet, especially if you get a more expensive one. I have a laptop and an iphone that work better than the nook so I don't care about any of that.