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Nook vs. Kindle – Hands On and Side by Side
By Dave Peterson | December 8, 2009
Today, people who ordered the Barnes & Noble nook eReader when it was first announced began to receive the devices. Although it’s now sold out through the end of the year (devices ordered today have an expected ship date of January 15, 2010), the common question among people considering their first eBook reader is, Kindle or nook? Which gives a better experience? As nooks begin to escape into the wild, we can start to answer that.
Breaching the packaging
Like many gadgets on the market today, the packaging around the nook takes some effort to open. The package consists of a clear plastic box, similar to what Apple has been using recently for iPods, with a white cardboard sleeve that covers most of the box.. The cardboard sleeve is lined with a slick lamination that adheres somewhat to the box, making a simple slide-off difficult. After a few other tries, I just slit open one side of the sleeve to remove it. It’s definitely a package designed to look good at brick-and-mortar retail stores, unlike the “frozen lasagna” packaging that houses new Kindles. A strip of clear tape seals the plastic box. Once removed, pry off the back (which holds the device), then flex the nook out of the tight holders that clamp at top and bottom, and you’re in!
Set up
Like the Kindle, the nook ships with initial start instructions on the e-ink screen. You are instructed to press the power button (a silver bar on the top edge) and watch as it powers up. You’ll want to remove the colorful label that simulates the function of the color screen as well. You will be instructed to tap and enter information on the touchscreen as you set up. Unlike the Kindle, which ships from Amazon with your account information already on it, the nook needs you to log in with your email address and password established at BarnesandNoble.com. If you don’t already have an account there’s an option to set one up. The prior programming has been a nice, friendly feature of the Kindle, but can be a bit of an annoyance if giving the device as a gift. Neither way is perfect for every case.
After initializing, you should plug in the reader (it uses the same USB-Micro USB cabling, with AC adaptor, as the Kindle) and bring it up to a full charge. Judging by the battery gauge, mine shipped with about a half charge.
The hardware
First, nook’s big difference: Rather than a physical keyboard, it fills the space below the reading screen with a color LCD touchscreen that’s a bit under 3.5″ wide and about 1″ tall. This screen is a navigation tool, alternately showing color book covers, and buttons for different major areas, such as shopping, settings, and returning to the book most recently read. The touchscreen also serves as a virtual keyboard for text entry such as when searching the online store for a book.
Side by side, the readers give an impression of being very similar. The Kindle is thinner (.36″ vs. .5″) but about a quarter-inch wider and taller. The Kindle is one ounce lighter at 10.2 ouches to nook’s 11.2. Physical controls are simplified on the nook with matching forward and back pressure points (not actual buttons) on both left and right sides of the bezel, a Home button below the screen, and the touchscreen for other navigation. The e-ink screens are virtually identical, both six inches diagonally. The nook case is all-plastic, with a gray back that’s reminiscent of the one on the first generation Kindle.
Side by side use
The most striking thing when comparing the two readers is speed. The Kindle is a lot faster in several tasks such as turning pages, opening a book, accessing the online store, and searching in the store. Turning pages (something you’ll do a lot and will notice lengthy waits) takes about 1 second on the Kindle and about 2.5 to 3 on the nook. Ideally you want the same or less time than it takes to turn a paper page. Three seconds is a pretty leisurely page turn. Opening a book takes about 9 seconds on the nook, versus about 2.5 on the Kindle. These speed issues may be cleared up with forthcoming software upgrades that are to be wirelessly pushed out to the devices, but until they are, they will be the nook’s biggest drawback compared to the Kindle.
The color touchscreen is a nice touch, but doesn’t really bring much to the reading experience. Selecting books by clicking on their cover images is easy and intuitive, and anything is an improvement over the Kindle’s directional stick-button. It’s important to understand the touchscreen is (at least currently) a tool for navigation only. Don’t let anyone tell you this is a color eReader.
One of the biggest non-hardware features worth calling out on the nook is its ability to lend books to other people. They don’t have to have a nook; the Barnes and Noble reader app available for several phones, or the computer desktop application, will work as well. The down side is not all books have the lending feature activated (publisher discretion) and you can only lend a book to the same person once. The lending period is two weeks, during which time you do not have access to it (as with a real book).
The wireless features on the nook benefit by being able to connect by local Wi-Fi as well as AT&T 3G (use of which comes with the cost of the device). Wi-Fi is a feature missing from the Kindle, and very handy in areas that don’t have good 3G coverage.
Internal storage is the same on both readers (2 GB), but the nook adds the ability to expand that with an microSD Card slot. Card-based storage was present in the original Kindle, but dropped from the current generation. Advertised battery life is 10 days on the nook, two weeks on the Kindle, keeping the wireless off in both cases. The nook’s battery is user-replaceable, whereas the Kindle’s is not.
The nook supports EPUB, PDF, and PDB eBook formats, the Kindle supports AZW (Amazon proprietary), TXT, PDF, MOBI, and PRC formats, with support of HTML and DOC with conversion.
Both readers are priced at $259.
Final thoughts
There’s a lot to like about the nook, but speed issues are a major drawback . As with a slow computer, eReader screens that are slow to refresh will tend to color your experience with a negative light that may overshadow many positives. I hope speed is improved through the upcoming software updates. It’s also worth remembering that the nook is a brand new, first generation device as compared to the Kindle which has had a couple years to gain some maturity and improved usability. That said, as these two devices current exist, my choice would be for the Kindle, almost entirely based on the screen refresh (and loading) speed problems.
Regardless of shortcomings on either side of the fence now, more competition is most likely to force innovation and improvements in all eReaders. I’m hoping the next generation Kindle will bring more advances because of the presence of the nook than it would have without. Likewise, the nook and eReaders not affiliated with retail giants should benefit from a stronger competitive field. I expect great things from this tech area in 2010.
Update: Good news! I appear to have received a firmware update (although my version number hasn’t changed), and page change speed is now much improved, entirely comparable with the Kindle. This alone makes the nook much easier and more pleasant to use.
Topics: ereaders | 10 Comments »
December 8th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
I read that an over-the-air firmware upgrade addressing some speed issues supposedly went out sometime between the 7th and 8th. Do you know if your nook had received it? I’d be curious how much of a difference, if any, that makes in the speed/responsiveness issues you experienced.
December 8th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Eddie, my software version shows as 1.0.0, so I’d guess I have not yet received the update. I’ll update here if speeds improve after I get it.
December 8th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Dave, I have the same firmware supposedly (1.0.0) but I don’t find the nook to be laggy at all. Could be due to the fact that it’s my first eInk device and I don’t have a Kindle to compare it to…I will be even happier if it DOES get faster though! However, I don’t find the speed to be a drawback at all and am very much enjoying using mine so far.
Keep us updated with your thoughts as the firmware updates roll out!
December 8th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Jess, I’m really glad the lag isn’t as noticeable for you. It is (currently) slower than the Kindle, and I notice it even when I’m not stopwatch timing it, as I did for this review. But if you, coming to it without preconceptions, do not find it slow, I actually feel a lot better about it. I hope it continues to be exactly the eBook reader you want!
December 10th, 2009 at 7:04 am
I wonder if the nook will be available in Canada.
The only thing that is getting me really interested is that i’ve been buying book for years at ereader.com in PDB format and that it would be compatible with the nook.
This was i’m protecting my investment. That’s the problem with DRM. I guess the future should be EPUB
December 10th, 2009 at 7:20 am
Ennev, currently the nook is US-only, but with the Kindle now available globally, I’m sure the nook will go worldwide as soon as they can get wireless and copyright issues hammered out.
December 10th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
I just received the nook and very disappointed at the negative comments about nook. I can’t open the nook because it’s going to be a gift. Now I am doubting should I give this gift, because that person also owns a kindle, it would such a downer for the slow speed despite the touch and color screen.
December 10th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Carmen – Speed is now improved, apparently through a firmware update. See my update above.
December 24th, 2009 at 9:52 am
[...] to GadgetyTech.com, I got to play with the Barnes & Nobel [...]
December 24th, 2009 at 11:12 am
[...] to GadgetyTech.com, I got to play with the Barnes & Noble [...]