I ordered the PRS-600 last weekend. I knew the Nook was coming (based on the leaks), but the double screen didn't seem like a good idea. I wan't an eReader for battery life. LCD screens drain batteries. I also figured the Nook would be a lot more expensive.
When the Nook was announced, I must say I was surprised by its price point. Some aggressive pricing by B&N. Also, the wow-factor of the color touch screen had me for a couple of seconds.
I still believe however, the PRS-600 is the right device for me. Here's my PRS-600 vs Nook cognitive dissonance, so sorry if this turns out to be a long post:
PRS-600
Battery life
Everybody who has a phone knows LCDs kill batteries. The battery life mentioned above is 2-10 days. Now 10 days is probably the absolute maximum they could get out of it. With wireless off and only turning pages on the e-ink display. But the Nook uses the LCD display for navigation. This means you'll have to use it all the time and I don't think it'll last much longer than smartphones using Android + touch screen displays.
e-ink touch screen
A big advantage of the PRS-600 is the e-ink touch screen navigation. You click on links inside ePub documents (like with ePapers and magazines). You can click on words to view them in the dictionary. You can make notes inside the book, on the page itself. (You can't scribble on Nook's screen, since it's a capacitive touch screen). And last but not least, the PRS-600 does normal note taking as well. For someone like me, who has several lists lying around everywhere, a real advantage.
(somewhat) proven
The Nook seemed a little buggy in the videos. Page turns taking a couple of seconds for example. Glitchy scrolling. Now this is probably a pre-production model, but with the PRS-600 you now what you get. A stable, experienced eReader.
Nook
Touch screen LCD
Other than the battery drain, I think the double screen is overrated. It uses screen real estate. You can't use it to browse the web. So what's left is browsing your catalog (and buying books, but I'll get to that later). And I'll admit, it'll be cool to do that in color. But in the end, who really needs it? When browsing in greyscale I can just as easily find the book I want.
Wifi/3G
Nice feature as well. But where it comes down to is, you can't use it to browse web content. And you can only buy books from B&N. Some people won't care, but at the moment B&N ebooks are mostly expensive. We'll see if they'll change that.
And although I understand this is a big advantage for most people. I'm from Europe (currently in the US) and will soon go back. B&N made sure the whole wireless part is pretty useless outside the US.
All in all I still believe LCD touch screens are a bad fix for the fact that color e-ink is not ready. It looks cool, but when the coolness wears off you ask yourself if it's really what you need for reading eBooks.
Wow, this turned out to be the longest post I've ever done.
Different people need different things. So some might not agree. But these are my thoughts.