Tuesday, October 20, 2009

No Kindle Killer...Yet

I'm impressed with the new B&N Reader, the Nook, but I'm not ready to call it a Kindle killer. Here's my rationale:

*It's not international; I still like books, but eBooks are great for the road...as long as you're not going overseas where the Nook isn't available (except through wi-fi)

*Wi-Fi (on the Nook, but not the Kindle 2) is impressive, but not really neccessary when there's no built in web browser.

*There's no built in Web browswer! This is one of the places Amazon still beats them; it's so simple to be reading about a place on Kindle and look it up on Wikipedia right from the book.

*Kindle has 2 years behind it's brand--Barnes and Noble is returning to the game after completely abandoning people! I hope they don't leave again after that 300 dollar investment!

*Is lending books 14 really that impressive? And is there a limit? On Kindle you can only download a book 5 times before your blocked...it's really lame.

Honestly, I think both devices are still overpriced. I'm more excited about the Asus. But it's good to see someone new on the market to challenge Amazon.

2 comments:

Kat Coble said...

You are incorrect about one thing. You can download a book on Kindle as many times as you like.

What you may have misunderstood is that there is a limit to the number of simultaneous devices upon which the books can be installed. In other words someone like me who has two iPhones, two kindles and three Macs in my household can only have my copy of Our Mutual Friend installed on two iPhones, two Kindles and one of the Macs.

But if I want to download Our Mutual Friend to my Kindle in the AM and take it off every evening I can do that a 1000 times if I want to.

Scott Douglas said...

It let's you download it as many times as you want...on one device; it's my understanding, however, that if you upgrade your Kindle to a new model you may not get to re-download some of the books; there might not be this problem if you de-authorize the old Kindle? I haven't had the problem yet, but I do think if MP3s taught us anything it's that people don't want to feel locked down--you bought the book, so why should you have to worry about how many devices it's on?