Help, I cannot decide whether I should return my nook and get a kindle or not

[mikey19]

Hi everyone,

this is my first post; i found this forum to be pretty helpful.

im a medical student and just bought a nook wifi+3G at B&N store. This is my first ebook reader, and i think i rushed the purchase a bit. I wanted some device that I can download textbooks to and bring to class and library so I can study off of.
I need it to be portable, able to go online, and highlight, annotate texts. Also since I can read chinese, I'd like it to have chinese support also.

after buying the nook, I just realized nook's store does not have any textbooks at all while amazon sells kindle medicine textbooks.
I also know about Calibre, but do not know how well it works in converting books - say if I buy an electronic textbook from kindle/amazon and want to convert it to a format that nook can read? (like pdf or epub?)

Also another factor is how upgradable/moddable these things are- as in how much support there is in the modding community? I realize nook is Android based, but I read somewhere that kindle is linux based; is there a lot of extra features can be had from these two devices? I have an iphone before and jailbroke it, and it was awesome.

I was just wondering if I should return my nook and get a kindle ? (or some other device that I do not know about?); the textbooks function is pretty important to me as well as internet access.
btw, i am very tech savvy, and do not mind to mod any device to get features as long as it doesnt involve crazy coding or writing my own programs (last programming class i took was in highschool...)

thanks!
Mike

[susan_cassidy]

Kindle does not natively support Chinese, only Latin-1 characters and greek characters. There is a "hack" to install other fonts. There are only a limited number of hacks (mods) for the Kindle. There is one for screensavers, one for fonts. Those are the only ones that leap to mind. You could "brick" the device if you aren't careful. At one point, Amazon said something about providing an SDK for applications, but nothing seems to have come from it. I think possibly because the kinds of things people wanted to add to it would require modifying the base software, which they don't want to allow, for obvious reasons.

Sometimes the manufacturer updates the firmware to add new features, fix bugs, etc.

Most textbooks are going to be DRM-protected, so you'd have to remove the DRM in order to convert them to another format.

On a 6-inch screen, a lot of textbooks might not look very good, anyway. It will depend on the book.

I think some textbooks are available (from places other than Amazon or B&N) in PDF format, which you can easily read on a pc. Many textbooks are going to look better on a larger screen, anyway. Personally, I think the small e-readers are fantastic for leisure reading, but not really great for textbooks (unless you are a Literature major).

The browser on a Kindle is pretty limited, so I wouldn't count on it for much web access. It works best with mobile sites.

[aleccj1]

I was sort of in the same position as you a week ago. Originally I bought the Nook 3g over the Kindle because of the ePub support and expandable memory. After I bought it, I realized I would never really need the ePub support, because I could just use Calibre to convert ePub to Mobipocket if I got the Kindle, and also my local libraries currently don't have eBooks. I really didn't need the expandable memory either, because with the Kindle you can have Amazon store the books on their servers. The touchscreen was more annoying than it was helpfull, as it was really laggy. So, I returned it and got the Kindle 2i and haven't looked back. The battery life is so much better and the reading experience is just much more enjoyable. If you need to read textbooks, you may want to look into the Kindle DX Graphite. If you want the regular Kindle, I would wait for the Kindle 3 to come out, it shouldn't be much longer.

Hope I helped.

[davidspitzer]

iPad
Kindle , Barnes and Noble and iBooks
Large selection of medical software
Color PDFs with full annotation
(I work in IT at a Hospital and most of the docs carry and iPhone and or an iPad)

[aleccj1]

Originally Posted by davidspitzer

iPad
Kindle , Barnes and Noble and iBooks
Large selection of medical software
Color PDFs with full annotation
(I work in IT at a Hospital and most of the docs carry and iPhone and or an iPad)

I wouldn't go for the iPad. If he waits until November for the Notion ink Adam, he could get Andriod plus a Pixel Qi screen and Nvidia Tegra 2.

[mikey19]

hey,
i actually have an iPad. the reason i got an ereader is b/c i don't want to strain my eyes too much. staring at LCD screens for too long actually hurts my eyes and makes me feel tired. I want to minimize that as much as I can.

so from what i've read, the kindle is not very moddable?

is there a way i can get some internet access to text based websites? (like gmail, forums, etc) with the nook's 3G connection? that would def. swing in the "not return nook" favor

Thanks

[davidspitzer]

You can access websites with the kindle and you would be able to read the same books on your iPad. I would go with the kindle

[davidspitzer]

Originally Posted by aleccj1

I wouldn't go for the iPad. If he waits until November for the Notion ink Adam, he could get Andriod plus a Pixel Qi screen and Nvidia Tegra 2.

The hardware sounds cool, but it's about the ecosystem, the apps the books etc. The hacker in me likes the notion (which is is still vaporware, I don't trust anything until it's shipping a la Que), but there are 3 million plus iPad and counting floating around. The consumer in me wants his content without having to copy and transform and so forth to get it. The one click will win out for better or for worse. Now if they had an iPad with the pixel qi screen that would be something.

Notion will sell at best a couple of hundred thousand and even that is probably overly generous. I have bought into to too many pipe dreams based on hardware alone. That no longer does it for me, that is why, I believe Irex died- no content stream. These guys can't survive on small hardware volumes without a renewable content revenue stream.

[zetareticuli]

I would go with the Kindle DX Graphite model. If you don't mind waiting, there will be better devices late this year or early next year. I am a scientist and I read a lot of textbooks. I have tried multiple 6" readers and they just won't do. You definitely need the larger screen for textbooks and technical content in PDF. I have tried many devices.
iPad has the best PDF support I have seen yet with the shortcoming of the LCD screen if it causes you eye strain. The Kindle DX is decent but not even close to the iPad as far as support for PDF. Have not tried the Graphite yet but I have heard there are improvements. The Entourage eDGe is not bad but it is heavy and not an ideal ebook reader. However, it does support annotations on PDF.

Unless you have an immediate need for an e-reader, I would suggest that you wait for a few months to see what becomes available. In the meantime, you can continue to read on the iPad. For medical books, you might need the color support for Anatomy textbooks, etc. If you don't want to wait and must get an e-reader now, the Kindle DXG seems the best given the lack of other options. The Kindle 2 or Kindle 3 when it comes out (provided it's only 6") would not be a good choice for textbooks unless they are formatted specifically for that screen size.

Of course, this is all a matter of opinion and based on my own experience.

[davidspitzer]

I know I am going to get shot, but I think the whole LCD causes eyestrain is mostly psychological. People convince themselves it is so and therefore it is. I think used correctly it is no more or no less straining then eink. Eink just has other strengths in terms of daylight readability. But I get eyestrain reading eink in low light, so it goes both ways.

[Dulin's Books]

you might want to consider the entourage Edge http://www.entourageedge.com/devices...rage-edge.html Android / eink / large screens

[mikey19]

Hey guys, wow this is a very cool and supportive group. thanks for all the feedback so far. i think im gonna stay on this forum for a long time.

I think i've made up my mind: i will return my nook. its just too small and no textbook support at all from B&N.

As for iPad, I actually gave it away to my parents, who love it haha.

and for my eyes, i actually read quiet alot last year on my computer LCD screens (laptop, desktop, etc.) and forums, etc. After a while, it does put a strain on my eyes, even with some rest. I feel this will add up in the long run, so I am definitely looking for an eInk type of display for heavy reading (and will use ample lighting).

Like i said, I am hoping for a eReader that can support textbooks, and can go online anywhere (3G) so i can check email, do some basic browsing, forum reading, etc.
and with some expandability in terms of modding, etc. to get extra features

Looks like amazon has the best support system right now, esp. since they actually offer some medicine textbooks in kindle format, and much cheaper than my school's book store!

but yeah, done with anatomy! haha, im a MS2 now man i did not like that class...

thanks