The two main rivals in the eBook reader market create a healthy fight with features that are now pretty common across both with only a few competitive advantages here and there to set the two apart. It really is between Amazon’s third-generation Kindle DX and Barnes & Noble’s Nook reader, a natural product rivalry with Amazon shaping up to be the world’s first online bookstore and surpassing the world’s largest brick-and-mortar bookstore, Barnes & Noble, in cyberspace leadership.
But as they say, it’s often just a matter of time before the competition gains parity and keeps up. Barnes & Noble did just that with their online presence and strong response to Amazon’s e-reader, albeit 2 years late. But Kindle is still the clear market leader with the Nook threatening its position.
It can be hard to choose between the latest generation of these two readers, both enjoying a decidedly growing market with the Kindle as their lead. And if you don’t have your priorities detailed, the decision can be a bit nerve-wracking. But if you do, it can be easy.
While both readers feature the same ePaper display technology, Barnes & Noble’s reader has a 3.5-inch color LCD adjoining below the ePaper for content navigation. That can be an advantage if you’ve been used to touchscreen smartphones. But if you like the QWERTY keyboard on your smartphone, the KindleDX has to be your choice.
The display area of the screen looks deceptively similar, but the Nook3G occupies the lower bottom with the touchscreen LCD, leaving only a single page display with 600 x 800 resolution, while the Kindle-DX offers a higher resolution. 825 x 1200. If you want a larger page view, the choice is clear.
Weight can be a deciding factor. Amazon’s 18.9 oz is sure to tug at your wrist holding it for reading long before B&W’s 12.1 oz.
The unique advantage of the Amazon e-book reader is its text-to-speech feature that allows you to read the book out loud. While it makes reading an aural chore, the feature has its practical advantage, allowing you to make some emergencies without missing a beat of what you’re reading. It is also a useful function for children to learn to pronounce words, foreigners to learn the language, and even the blind to get book content. That’s what you won’t get in the contender.
The Amazon store has a library of 725,000 books. B&N has triple that number. So if wealth of titles is a priority for you, the world’s largest bookstore can’t let you down, and Nook takes advantage of that.
The DX only has 3G connectivity while the Nook-3G has it plus WiFi. Both offer their free data connectivity to Amazon’s Whispernet and AT&T’s network. This feature may not be important to people who don’t bother with hotspots.
While the Kindle-DX has double the onboard memory at 4GB, the Nook supports microSD up to 16GB. If the 3,500 eBook titles that can be stored on the Kindle DX aren’t enough for you, then the Nook has to be your choice.
