Both are user-photos, rather than official marketing photos.  Click on either image to see more.

First, here’s a new free Kindle book that showed up yesterday:
Wrongful Death: The AIDS Trial, by Stephen Davis, 19 customer reviews, 4.5 stars
Publisher: L&G Productions LLC (October 13, 2010)

It’s a controversial novel in courtroom-drama style by Davis, “a former Arizona State Senator, Physician’s Assistant, captain of a whale and dolphin research ship…”

NOOK SIMPLE TOUCH AND KINDLE 3 FEATURES
In responding to articles or comments at the NY Times and the Amazon Kindle Forum, I included some information I had gathered, and I’m including a copy below of essentially what I posted to the Kindle forum.   I’ll try to do something in easier-to-read format later.

Where the new Nook has advantages are:
. a Touch screen (many will prefer it just for this feature,
for easier navigation)
. smaller size
. slightly lighter weight
. somewhat faster page turns
. shorter black-flash in between pages
. No keyboard ‘buttons’ causing user confusion
. Claimed longer battery session per charge w/o WiFi wireless On.

Barnes and Noble’s claim to a 2-mo. battery charge when Wireless is Off (Nook Touch and Kindle are the same for WiFi On, they said) was stated to be based on 1/2 hr of reading per day or 3.5 hrs reading a week.  I would not say this stat was based on those who are avid readers.

The Kindle (as reported by some columns) has long been based on 1 hour of reading per day or 7 hours a week.

There’s been a lot of press on this and then a bit of pique by Barnes and Noble when Amazon changed its marketing battery-charge marketing claim to “up to two months” if basing it on the same, only-1/2 hour a day as B&N does, which makes sense.   Barnes and Noble complained mightily that their testing of the Nook Simple Touch with Wireless Off showed a longer battery time for the Nook, regardless.  Both companies have now included wording to the effect that it all depends on how you use the device.  Those who need to sync their devices between the e-reader and smart phones and who download newspapers and magazines regularly (on either reader) will need Wireless On more.

However, in order to get the Touch screen technology for e-Ink, B&N apparently felt they had to cut some features that the older e-Ink Nooks had.  Here’s the list (mildly edited) that I made for a forum response at Amazon’s Kindle forums, on the Kindle 3 with Special Offers ($164) topic question re a comparison with the Nook, and you can check the B&N Comparison chart for NookColor and Nook, used as a reference for the post.  I’ve added some bold-facing here to try to make things clearer on a long piece.

‘ — 1a. The “3G” Kindle has 3G cellphone network access and you can look up things on the web almost anywhere you are, at any time.
— 1b. The new Nook Touch does not have ‘3G’ web access. You have to find a local WiFi Network or hotspot to download your book.

— 2a. The Kindle has a web browser that can read web articles in “Article Mode” concentrating on the article, with a cleaner layout..
You can use the web browser to look up things on the Web/Net with no monthly or hourly charges.
— 2b. The new Nook Touch has no web browser at all, not even in WiFi mode. The old Nook had a decent one to use with WiFi but not with its 3G model, which was limited to the company store.

— 3a. The Kindle has a music player that can play your mp3’s in the background.
— 3b. The Nook has no music player.

— 4a. The Kindle reads personal docs, newspapers, magazines, and books the publisher approves for text-to-speech (tts). It’s computerized but better than most computer voices and is useful for times when you have to cook, wash dishes, drive somewhere…
— 4b. The Nook Simple Touch doesn’t have text-to-speech.

— 5a. You can buy and download books from Amazon while outside the U.S.
The Kindle’s 3G cellphone-access web browser is usable in about 60 countries.
Its ‘3G’ Amazon book downloads are available in about 100 countries.
— 5b. No one outside the U.S. can buy a Barnes & Noble book for the new Nook, not even a traveling U.S. resident. No web browsing is possible ever.

— 6a. The Kindle can zoom any photo to full screen by clicking in the center of it.
— 6b. The new Nook can’t. Not even maps with small text.

— 7a. You can switch the Kindle to Landscape mode for regular books and the web.
— 7b. The new Nook does not have Landscape mode as a feature at all.
It comes only in Portrait mode for reading.

PDFs that can’t be read in Landscape mode on a 6″ screen are often just not readable.  This is important for those hoping to read PDF manuals.

— 7c. You can adjust display contrast on PDFs, on a Kindle, important for color ‘translations to 16 gray levels, as some colors are so faint as gray levels they’re hard to read.
— 7d. The new Nook has no PDF screen-contrast control.

— 8a. B&N advertises the Nook store has 2 million books but counts the free Google books, which are about 1.2 million.
— 8b. For the Kindle, a publishing outfit offers Free immediate conversions from Google’s ePub to Kindle format always, and we can do it ourselves in about 2-3 minutes w/Calibre and send it to the Kindle or side-laod it.

See http://bit.ly/milkbooks for how easy the conversion is, either by the Kindle owner or for free by the small publishing outfit who then puts up a copy of each converted files for anyone to download in Kindle format.

— 9a. Kindle users can download, directly to the Kindle, over 2 million Kindle-compatible books & docs from Internet Archive also — either MOBI or text format. Sideloading is rarely needed as it is for the Nook.
Other bookstores with huge mobi book stock are feedbooks.com and manybooks.net.
— 9b. For non-B&N books, the new Nook’s owner must “sideload” other bookstores’ books because it has no web browser. It can’t directly download them as the Kindle can.

— 10a. Amazon supports MS Word Doc files. I can highlight sections from several websites, copy/paste them to a Word doc, send the file to Amazon servers and it gets sent to my Kindle via WiFi, converted. It’s very useful for work and informational docs.
— 10b. New Simple Touch Nook e-Ink model does not support WORD doc files.

— 11a. B&N advertises that the Nook can access all AT&T hotspots and says that the Kindle cannot.
— 11b. Amazon has always advertised that the Kindle 3′ has free access to AT&T hotspots (I used one yesterday at Shattuck Cinemas).

— 12a. B&N’s chart says that library lending is not available for the Kindle but they are aware that Overdrive and Amazon have announced that the Kindle will be able to borrow library books this year with extra features of being able to download direct to Kindle instead of sideloading it to the Nook via a computer, a process that aims to be “seamless” and takes about 60 seconds to do.

Also, the Kindle will save annotations for the borrower in case the person either borrows the book again (if they’d not had time to finish it before it was due back and disappeared from the e-reader) or decides to buy the book.

That’s it for now. ‘

I’m a NookColor owner, by the way, and I enjoy magazines and portable web-browsing on it.  But the new Nook E-Ink, for me, skimps far too much on features important to me, although those who prize touchscreen navigation above other features will want the Nook.  It’s hard to say because online gadget reviewers have not been able to do an actual hands-on yet (as of a couple of days ago) although it’s due for shipping in a few days.

Also check the below at any time:

Temporarily-free books –
Non-classics
– USA: by:
NEW: Last 30+ days May 2011
Publication Date Late-listed
Bestselling High-ratings

UK: PubDate Popular
What is 3G? and “WiFi”?
Highly-rated e-books under $1
Most Popular Free K-Books
U.S. & Int’l (NOT UK):
Top 100 free
UK-Only:
Top 100 free
USEFUL for your Kindle (U.S. only, for now): 
99c Notepad,   99c CalendarPro,   99c Converter

Via Andrys Basten’s A Kindle World blog

16 COMMENTS

  1. Obviously, Kindle takes the prize for “best” e-reader. B&N just keeps spinning their wheels and as an owner of original Nook (purchased a year ago this month) I am pretty disappointed in the new e-ink Nook. I actually like the little touch pad for navigation on the original Nook as opposed to the Kindle’s button method. I would not trade all the good stuff for a touch screen e-reader either. I have an iPod touch and am constantly cleaning it up. I am also concerned that the original Nook is being decommissioned. Will this mean no more updates or improvements? Almost makes me want to go for an Amazon with special offers. Library downloads to the Nook and other ePub e-readers are a definite pain for most people, due to Adobe DRM and the sideloading method of transferring from your computer. The Kindle with direct library download via WhisperSync will be a big attraction for those of us who borrow ebooks from public libraries, which I do very often.

  2. “Best” ereader depends on what you want and need. Reading over the post, I don’t see a single things Amazon offers that I want or need. I want a reader for books, plain and simple. When I finally buy an ereader, it will probably be a Nook.

  3. I agree Catana. The people who devise and decide these “Best of” lists are always function-obsessed. That may be ok for gadgets like smart phones and laptops, but eReaders for ordinary people don’t need to be function-packed. People want well designed basics and I agree the Nook is looking good. The battle for the wider reading public has barely begun.

  4. I don’t know about anyone else, but a WiFi-enabled device without a Web browser seems pretty pointless, even in ereader. Lots of ebooks are published with links to Web sites — including links back to the stores to buy other books — and those are unusable in the new Nook (if I read the post correctly). Plus, being able to download any compatible book directly to my device — rather than having to connect it to my computer and then sideload — is a huge plus.

    It’s also puzzling that the new Nook doesn’t allow the user to zoom in on images. Because of lagging support for tables, it’s common in ebooks for tables and charts to be reproduced as images. The new Nook would make reading the data in the table difficult, if not impossible.

  5. “I don’t know about anyone else, but a WiFi-enabled device without a Web browser seems pretty pointless, even in ereader.”

    I really don’t understand this. I am a reader. I want to read books on my eReader. I don’t want to surf on my eReader. I don’t want to follow links in a book … why would I do that ? I surf on my iPad or MacBookPro. Tables ? no way!

  6. “I really don’t understand this. I am a reader. I want to read books on my eReader. I don’t want to surf on my eReader. I don’t want to follow links in a book … why would I do that ? I surf on my iPad or MacBookPro. Tables ? no way!”

    I don’t browse on my reader either, but having a browser allows me to store my books on DropBox (or another online storage place) and download them to my device on demand and also load books from places like Mobile Read, Feedbooks, Manybooks, Webscription and Gutenberg without hooking it to a computer.

  7. I don’t browse on my reader either, but having a browser allows me to store my books on DropBox (or another online storage place) and download them to my device on demand and also load books from places like Mobile Read, Feedbooks, Manybooks, Webscription and Gutenberg without hooking it to a computer.

    This.

    And why would you follow links in an ebook? It seems obvious, but I’ll indulge: because an author may have provided supplemental content or additional resources to explore that complement the material in the book. If there’s a link in the book and my WiFi-enabled device also has a browser, I can explore that link without having to switch devices.

  8. Rob in Denver:

    It’s also puzzling that the new Nook doesn’t allow the user to zoom in on images.

    I find this terribly frustrating, as well. Aldiko had this feature and they removed it in 2.0! Now I can probably strongly assume that these limitations stem directly from the use of the Adobe Reader SDK, so it’s not really under B&N’s control. You gain some (good widow/orphan support, excellent advanced formatting, real font support) and you lose some (no image zoom, badly-outdated desktop app with poor library integration, slower) with Adobe.

    I would honestly consider buying the new Nook if they brought back multi-level table-of-contents support. The old Nook had it, the Nook Color does not and they removed it from the Nook Classic with the last software update. O’Reilly books, in particular, are difficult to navigate using B&N products. (I don’t think Kindle includes this feature, either.)

    I think the worst part is that the complaints are so minor that it shouldn’t take a year to address these flaws.

  9. Logan,
    That’s interesting. I’ve not been able to zoom illustrations in my NookColor either and wondered why. Most problematical for me, since I keep a lot of manuals and guides in manufacturer PDF format on e-readers, is the missing Landscape mode for most non-children’s books even on the NookColor. However, the latter now has a PDF Android app that I’ve downloaded and I hope that this solves it for the NookColor.

    On the e-Ink Nook though, the lack of Nook apps (not Android) is a loss, now that I’m used to having a good Notepad, Calculator, Converter, and Calendar always with me in editable format on a decent-sized screen (interactive apps).

    As I said, for those who prize touchscreen-navigation the most, the new e-Ink Nook would be the choice. But other things -are- important to some of us for the reasons given in other comments here.

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