Quote:
Originally Posted by Kralik
It used to be that the JB was ~$100 less than the competition. When I bought mine for $170, Sony was about $280 and the Kindle $300. Now that prices are dropping, though... is it worth it?
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My short answer would be no, the Ectaco readers are no longer worth what they once were. My wife just picked up two Nook Wi-Fi readers for $99 each at Wal-Mart (price match for Best Buy doorbuster). In many ways the Nook blows my JBL out of the water. For a company that is known for dictionaries, the Ectaco readers have HORRIBLE lookup functions. The Nook has an excellent word lookup function. The choice of fonts and screen size is also much better with the Nook. In fact, my wife couldn't read for extended periods with my JBL without eye strain, but found the Nook to be very comfortable to read. The JBL is twice as thick as the Nook and it feels much more flimsy in comparison.
The greatest advantage I've so far discovered with the Nook over my JBL is with an epub study Bible. It's a huge epub (8600+ pages) and failed to load on my JBL. I put it on the Nook and it comes right up complete with embedded links that the JBL can not do on ANY ebook. It's also nice to be able to have audiobooks and podcasts on an ereader that costs the same or in many cases LESS than the JBL.
Now I'm not going to throw out my JBL as it is nice to be able to have an ereader to put in your pocket and go with a spare set of batteries from time to time, but given the choice between a $99 Nook and a $99 JBL which one do you think most people would choose?