Nook Touch $60 (refurbished from Barnes and Noble through Ebay)

Is this a good deal? I honestly don't know.

thx nodinero. I had no idea that Kindles did not do ePub formats.

Treefarn said:   I'm a little confused by this post. Normally, if you 'prefer' something, there must have been some comparison. Your 1-3 bullet points seem to favor the Nook (the 3G Nooks have the same limited web surfing). You may LIKE your Kindle, but why do you have a 'preference' over the Nook?

Anyway, to provide a counterpoint, yes, Nook can read ePubs. As far as I know, for the Kindle, you have to purchase direct from Amazon. (there are some free Kindle sites, but for purchases...) With ePubs, there are a variety of different locations to purchase from. While there isn't a tremendous amount of price difference between different stores, there is occasionally some.

Nook also has a generous warranty. When my son's Nook stopped working, they replaced it right at my local Barnes and Noble, didn't need to ship it off to Amazon and await a new one.

As to whether its a good buy at this price, no, I don't think it is. I've seen cheaper (though I don't know of any current deals), and with new Kindle's coming out soon, new 7inch iPads possibly coming out soon, I would expect further reduction in Nook prices.

When you buy a Kindle or Nook, you are not just buying the device itself. You are making a choice as to which vendor you will purchase your future ebooks from. Amazon/B&N are aggressively competing (and very possibly losing money) on e-book readers, since they can make the money back easily over a few years if they can "lock in" a new customer now. It entirely makes sense that one would choose one platform over the other not because it has better hardware, but because the vendor's content/prices/service is better. For instance, the Kindle might be desirable if you have Prime and can access their free "lending library" for Kindle users.

Really, I find this whole system quite annoying...and it's why I refuse to buy a Kindle, Nook, or any other reader that is centered around content consumption from a single vendor. Some of these devices (as you say) do support other formats, or may be hackable to support more formats or book markets (ie Nook Color). But in any case...I want to buy a device that reads books from any vendor, and if I spend money on ebooks I would like to read them on whatever device I want without restriction. Otherwise, i'll stick with dead tree books for now.

scottxmso said:   Treefarn said:   I'm a little confused by this post. Normally, if you 'prefer' something, there must have been some comparison. Your 1-3 bullet points seem to favor the Nook (the 3G Nooks have the same limited web surfing). You may LIKE your Kindle, but why do you have a 'preference' over the Nook?

Anyway, to provide a counterpoint, yes, Nook can read ePubs. As far as I know, for the Kindle, you have to purchase direct from Amazon. (there are some free Kindle sites, but for purchases...) With ePubs, there are a variety of different locations to purchase from. While there isn't a tremendous amount of price difference between different stores, there is occasionally some.

Nook also has a generous warranty. When my son's Nook stopped working, they replaced it right at my local Barnes and Noble, didn't need to ship it off to Amazon and await a new one.

As to whether its a good buy at this price, no, I don't think it is. I've seen cheaper (though I don't know of any current deals), and with new Kindle's coming out soon, new 7inch iPads possibly coming out soon, I would expect further reduction in Nook prices.

When you buy a Kindle or Nook, you are not just buying the device itself. You are making a choice as to which vendor you will purchase your future ebooks from. Amazon/B&N are aggressively competing (and very possibly losing money) on e-book readers, since they can make the money back easily over a few years if they can "lock in" a new customer now. It entirely makes sense that one would choose one platform over the other not because it has better hardware, but because the vendor's content/prices/service is better. For instance, the Kindle might be desirable if you have Prime and can access their free "lending library" for Kindle users.

Really, I find this whole system quite annoying...and it's why I refuse to buy a Kindle, Nook, or any other reader that is centered around content consumption from a single vendor. Some of these devices (as you say) do support other formats, or may be hackable to support more formats or book markets (ie Nook Color). But in any case...I want to buy a device that reads books from any vendor, and if I spend money on ebooks I would like to read them on whatever device I want without restriction. Otherwise, i'll stick with dead tree books for now.

Well, that was my point with mentioning the Nook supports ePub, which you can buy from a multitude of different sellers. You aren't locked in to buying from B&N. And as the above post mentions, you can always convert from one format to another using Calibre. Not the most convenient option, but simple and free.

And I'm not sure I really understand your gripe. If you buy Final Fantasy for the XBox, you don't expect it to work in a Playstation. If you buy Adobe for a windows machine, you don't expect it to work on your Mac. If you buy a CD, you don't expect it to work in your tape deck.

deal is alive!