Hi!
I have had a Kindle 2 over a year now but heard so much about the Nook that last week I went out and bought one. Returned it the next day.
The battery life is awful! The touch screen is really what drains the battery so quickly but sheesh. I read a few pages of a free book and the battery went down 2%. And that was only in a few minutes! The lady at B&N said it would last 2 days, my Kindle lasts for a good week.
As far as design, yes the Kindle has a lot of buttons, but to be honest its easier than the Nooks design. With the nook if you want to highlight, for instance, you have to go to the menu, find bookmark and highlight, click highlight, then click add a highlight, then scroll to get the highlight you want. With the Kindle you just use the 5-way button and highlight what you want. Personally, I'd rather highlight quickly and get back to my reading. But that's me.
The page turning takes a few seconds longer than Kindle, but its still pretty quick. The downloading takes about the same time as the Kindle.
As far as books, I've seen almost all the same books on B&N as I have on Amazon. And the prices are exactly the same. Yes, B&N has additional free books, but they are almost all by new authors and not something most people would like to read.
One plus about the Nook is that if you go to a B&N with it, you can read any ebook for free for an hour. And then after an hour start another one. I thought that was cool.
However, at the end of the day I returned the Nook and kept my Kindle.
If you have any more questions, feel free to give me a shout. I'd be more than happy to help you out
--Kate