There are many changes afoot this latter part of 2011 in the ebook reader market. Once again Barnes and Noble and Amazon are dueling for the most popular ebook reader on the market. There are a few new versions of the Kindle, and same goes for Nook. Let’s take a look at the Kindle vs Nook version by version and see which are best.
New Kindle Family
There was a whole new family of Kindles released in late 2011 for shoppers to choose from.
The newest base model Kindle is a big step-down from last years Kindle With Keyboard model, however, it’s pricing is much lower. There’s only room for 1,000 books on the device compared to 3,500 for the Kindle 3. There’s no keyboard for navigation, and no 3G option. Minimalists may like this cheap alternative despite the lack of features.
The Kindle Touch is the newest and best E Ink reader to be released by Amazon. The Touch is completely touch operated. They even did away with the page turn buttons on the device. This is a huge difference compared to the full-touch keyboard version of 2010. The Kindle Touch has very similar features to the Kindle 3 with 3,000 books of storage, 3G option, and a few new features of its own.
The X-Ray feature of the Kindle Touch allows for users to skim entire books at a glance. X-Ray shows important characters, events, and terminology within a book in a visual timeline form. Amazon’s thinking is this is a good way for people to get re-acquainted with a book, or to search a book for research purposes. People who have tried to write a school or research paper using ebooks as reference knows this will very much help. It’s basically a table of contents on steroids.
The Kindle Fire is the hottest item to be released by Amazon this year. The Fire is a full color touch tablet PC and color ebook reader. At a cheap price point, it is proving to be extremely popular with shoppers already. It’s rumored that Amazon is even losing money with the creation of the Fire. However, the Fire is a device that taps into the huge reservoir of digital content available at Amazon. This means Amazon will have plenty of means to make up the loss in profit with selling content.
The New Nooks
The Nook Simple Touch is the latest E ink reader. Much like the Kindle Touch, it has a fully touch operated E-ink screen. It has the ability to store just over 1,000 books, has a 2 month battery life and is comparably priced with the Kindle Touch.
Unlike the Kindle Touch, the Nook Simple Touch has page turn buttons as well, and has a rubberized finish on the device. These are two popular features among users. Each page turn button is programmable to be able to change from “page up” or “page down”.
The Nook Tablet is the latest tablet PC style color ebook reader to be released from Barnes and Noble. It has double the memory capacity of the Nook Color, however there are more limitations on the memory of the device. One can only put non-Barnes and Noble on 1 GB of the device memory. That leaves 15 GB of Barnes and Noble content only.
The Nook Color is a color ebook reader that is now over a year old in design. It’s quickly getting overshadowed by the Nook Tablet. The Nook Color is identically priced with the Kindle Fire, so it will be a very popular thing to compare the Nook Color vs Kindle Fire.
Kindle Vs Nook- Model By Model, Which Is Better?
Kindle Touch vs Nook Simple Touch- These two E Ink readers are very similar in design, functionality, and pricing. However, there are some differences nonetheless. The Kindle Touch allows for 3,000 books storage, whereas the Nook Touch only allows 1,000. Both devices have 2 months battery life on one charge with wireless turned off, allowing for minimal charging at only 6 times a year!
Only the Kindle Touch has a 3G option, the Nook Simple Touch does not. It should be noted that “special offers” will be shown on the Kindle devices if one chooses the lower pricing of each model. These are rotating ads on the sleep screen and on the main home screen.
There are a few more features to consider when comparing the Kindle vs Nook. Firstly, only Kindle models allow for international use. So if a shopper lives outside of the United States, or perhaps travels abroad a lot, they may want to take this into consideration. Another feature unique to the Kindle is the Text-to-Speech feature. This is a computerized voice that reads the book aloud. Not all publications are allowed to have this feature as it’s decided by publishers of each individual book.
Kindle Fire vs Nook Color- It makes sense to compare these two devices as they are currently identical in pricing and many other features. Both have the same 512 MBs of RAM, 8 GB of on device storage and the same 7″ color lcd screens. The Kindle Fire has access to more apps, more television shows and movies because of the size of Amazon vs size of Barnes and Noble online store.
A notable feature for Kindle users is the option to use Amazon Prime to have access to more tv, movies, and ability to borrow new release books (1 per month).
The memory of the two devices are handled differently as well. The Nook Color has 8 GB of on device memory, with expandable SD card slot. This effectively can be upgraded to 32 GB on board memory. The Kindle Fire has 8 GB on board memory and free use of Amazon’s Cloud drive for Kindle users, for Amazon content. Otherwise, users will get 5 GB free usage of the Cloud, then must pay for an expanded subscription if they want to store non-Amazon content. One can switch out content from the Cloud to the device as needed.
Kindle Fire vs Nook Tablet- Comparing the Kindle Fire vs Nook Tablet is another popular comparison that many shoppers are partaking in at the moment. The Nook Tablet has some seemingly better features at first glance, but not necessarily.
The Nook Tablet has 16 GB on device memory out of the box, whereas the Kindle Fire has only 8 GB. However, only 1 GB of the Tablet memory can be used for non-Barnes and Noble content. For more storage of content not bought there, one must insert an SD card, which of course costs money. Add that to the $50 more the Tablet costs than Fire, and it’s starting to lose some appeal.
Another selling point Barnes and Noble is trying to make is the 1 GB RAM compared to the Fire’s 512 MB. This doesn’t necessarily make the device any faster, though. The speed of a device depends on many factors besides RAM, including software for device speed and browser for Web browsing speed.
Web browsers are a hot topic of the Kindle Fire and Nook Color and Tablet devices. Amazon has announced it’s new “Amazon Silk” browser, promising to be an ultra fast mobile browsing experience, whereas the Nook models use a customized Android.
All in all, both Nook ebook readers and Kindle ebook readers are completely capable and quality devices, no matter which type of reader one is talking about, the E Ink screens or color back lit LCD screens. Comparing the Kindle vs Nook for 2011 and 2012 reveal two great companies offering at least 6 great products.