Two good deals...which to buy?

[ApK]

Originally Posted by mcrow24

No need to get snarky.

I get paid per snark. Gotta make a living.

you can't go wrong with either of them.

Certainly true if you understand what you are getting (and what you want).
I think saying stuff like "better," which, in just about every case, is subjective at best, is not helpful, unless you specify why you think it's better. Then the OP can decide for themselves if that factor is indeed better for their needs or not.

[ProfCrash]

And here I thought that the silly "Locked into Amazon" thread had finally died a well deserved death. There are book stores that sell Mobi books other then Amazon. It requires the same amount of work to use those bookstore as it does to use the Sony or Kobo store for the Nook.

It takes a few seconds longer to use a book from Sony or Kobo or BN making it pretty much hassle free.

I would not buy a Nook. I have seen a few (two) in public. They appear to be pretty close in size to the Kindle, the Color LCD screen at the bottom looks silly and makes navigation for things like bookmarks, highlighting, taking notes, and using the dictionary a pain in the butt.

I prefer the form factor of the Kindle and I love that I don't have to recharge my Kindle all that frequently because there is no battery draining LCD touchscreen at the bottom of my device.

If a touchscreen is important to you, I would take a look at the new Kobo. The specs were released today and it looks nice. Obviously there are no reviews on how it works yet. I am sure that the computer magazines will start reviewing it as soon as they can. Nook is announcing something tomorrow.

[Keslynn]

I have a Kindle 2 and a Sony Pocket Reader (PRS-350). The Sony has an eInk pearl screen and the contrast is so much better than the Kindle 2 which has the previous generation of eInk. If you're buying a Kindle, get the newer version. The eInk pearl is worth the extra cost (IMO at least). As for the nook, I unfortunately have no real experience with those. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong but I believe they have the same eInk type as the Kindle 2, which means less clarity in the text.

Another thing to consider is what types of ebooks you already have. If you have ebooks already, what kind are they? If they're not a kind that's compatible with the reader you choose, are you willing to do a little fiddling to make them work? It's fairly easy to strip DRM from books to load them onto another reader but it's not worth the hassle to some.

Is borrowing ebooks from the library important to you? If so, I'd probably go with the nook. Kindle announced that they will have library access but I don't think it's as widely implemented as epub format borrowing already is.

Finally, how often and in what locations do you purchase (or think you'd purchase) ebooks? If you have frequent easy access to wifi, then a wifi-only device would work very well for you. Otherwise, it might be nice to have 3g. I do love my Sony but sometimes I miss the books just popping onto my reader when 3g is on. 3g would be available for Kindle 2 or nook though I'm sure the wireless would work the same as soon as it connected.

Edited to add: I thought of this while randomly while browsing the forums and it may or may not matter to you. My Sony shows the covers of the books while the Kindle only shows the text. I appreciate being able to see the cover of a book because it helps to remind me what the book is or at the very least what genre. Collections on the Kindle do help sort things by genre but it doesn't trigger my brain the same way as a seeing a cover does. If something like that is important to you, go with nook or something else that will show covers. I do love my Kindle but looking at a list of text titles is quite simply a drier experience than seeing covers.

All are solid readers but at the end of the day, you should pick the one that best matches your preferences.