Barnes and Noble Nook Vs Amazon Kindle — Which Comes Out on Top?
A lot of people are interested to see which ebook reader would take top honors in a Nook vs Kindle matchup. The big question is — which one? While Amazon’s Kindle is clearly the dominant ereader in the market today, there are consumers and tech reviewers saying that the Barnes and Noble gadget has what it takes to give the Kindle some serious competition. Is it a close call? It’s time to put both devices side by side.
Size, Weight and Design
With a measurement of 7.7 inches in length and 4.9 inches in width, the Nook is somewhat smaller than the Kindle which is 8 inches long and 5.3 inches wide. But then again, at 0.3-inch in depth, the Kindle is slimmer than the Nook at half an inch thick. The Barnes & Noble device also weighs a tad heavier at 11.2 ounces compared to the Kindle’s 10.2-oz mass.
Unlike the Kindle, the back cover of the Nook is designed to be removable, providing easy access to its replaceable lithium ion battery pack. But what actually puts the Nook on an entirely new level is its 3.5-inch LCD color touchscreen which replaces a typical keyboard for navigation. The distinction between the color LCD and the grayscale e-ink screen offers an interesting dynamics to the gadget that only a small number of other ereaders can take pride in.
Other Features
The two ebook readers come with 2GB of internal memory, but while that’s about it for the Kindle, the Nook gives the user the choice of adding more storage space via its microSD memory expansion slot. The two devices are also connected through AT&T’s 3G wireless network but only the Nook offers WiFi connectivity. Visit a Barnes & Noble shop and you’ll have instant free access to WiFi.
Unique Features of Each
Now comes the more exciting Nook vs Kindle facts. What does the Nook have that Kindle can’t match and vice versa? For starters, the Barnes and Noble ereader offers two novel services – book lending (being able to loan your ebook to a different Nook owner) and in-store browsing (being able to look over full ebooks for free within Barnes and Noble outlets).
For its part, Kindle does come with text-to-speech feature which allows the user to just relax and listen to the book being read. In addition, the Kindle permits web browsing, while the Nook doesn’t. Finally, the Nook’s battery life of 7 to 10 days (more like 4-5 days according to users) is a far cry from the Kindle’s up to 14 days battery power (more like 10 days in actual use). For both devices, the battery life estimated here is with the WiFi turned off.
The Decision
Like I’ve mentioned earlier, choosing a clear winner between the Nook vs Kindle is not that simple. But while both have exciting features, Amazon’s gadget gets the edge in overall use as it has practically perfected the technology, having o up with several Kindle versions. On the other hand, the Nook’s numerous issues, like slow page turns and sluggish startup may be addressed in succeeding versions, after which it can really give the Kindle a good fight.