Cutline Speaks

Battle of the e-readers!

posted by The Cutline Team on January 25, 2010

[Ed. Note: Several Cutliners have taken the plunge on an e-reader in the last year, so we thought it was about time to hash out the respective merits of two of the most popular models on the market: the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes & Noble Nook. Michael will be weighing in on behalf of the Kindle; Rachael will represent the Nook. Enjoy!]

MK: So, Horwitz: I hear you got a Nook over the holidays. Congrats on buying the Microsoft Zune of e-readers! How's it treating you so far?

RH: Oh snap, Kirkland! So far I L-O-V-E my Nook. I lurve it. I can't say enough good things about it. But it is my first e-reader so that's probably part of the excitement. To kick things off I will say that I really enjoy my colorful, backlit touchscreen, which lets me browse books by cover and navigate pretty easily between different menus. Oh, I'm sorry -- maybe I should back up for you and explain that a touchscreen is a slick, fun non-button option. How are your Kindle buttons still treating you?

MK: Pretty well, actually. I take a lot of notes in my books (an old habit from my grad-school days), and it's nice to have the physical keyboard for that kind of thing. You know what's also nice? Being able to access all the notes I take and all the passages I highlight from the web. Must be pretty tough to not be able to do that with the Nook, huh? Do you just take notes on your hand with a felt-tip pen or something?

RH: Oh. Well, good for you. I take notes the old fashioned way: on my computer like this lady. Anyway, one thing I will say is kind of funny about my e-reader is when other people want to play around with it. Because the screen technology takes a little while to load, I find myself getting really protective of my Nook and saying, "OK, so when you press a button, don't press it again and again. Just give it time. Give it space. It will eventually load." It all feels a little backward, like waiting for the Internet to dial up or something. The pages flip fine, though. Also, here's a bonus: Free Google books pop up in my searches. Does your Kindle do that? Didn't think so! BOOYA!

MK: Probably don't want to break out that "BOOYA" just yet -- I actually can get Google Books on my Kindle. But I think the Nook probably still has an advantage in terms of library size, likely because the Nook is much more open than the Kindle (which has sometimes been referred to as the “iPod of the book world”). As far as loading speed is concerned, I have heard that the Nook can be painfully slow at times, but I'd bet that B&N will eventually be able to improve that via firmware updates. Here's my big beef with both readers: the lack of a full color screen. Sure, your Nook has the little band at the bottom, but the reader portion of the screen still turns features like this into fuzzy little Etch-a-Sketch drawings, right?

RH: Yes! I've noticed that. In a perfect world I would have a screen that switches between the e-ink screen (easy on my eyes after nine hours of computing) and a color screen. Is that even possible? Or is that like, only available in science fiction on the planet Pandora?

MK: No idea, but I'm loving the fact that we found a way to work in a James Cameron reference here. Anyway, there is a glimmer of hope to be found in the iPhone and PC applications Amazon has developed for the Kindle (Mac and BlackBerry apps are in the works). I use the iPhone app almost as much as my Kindle, and it renders the digital books in bright, web-like pages. Of course, it does something else too: It makes it possible for me to break out my latest book whenever I have a spare 10 minutes. And if I read a few pages on my iPhone while waiting in line at the DMV or grabbing some lunch, it automatically syncs with my Kindle via the cloud, so when I go home and pick up the e-reader, it knows right where I left off. How are you liking the mobile apps for the Nook? Oh wait -- there aren't any.

RH: Um, whatever. The thing about me is, I like having separate devices for important stuff. I'm not one of these crackberry types. Your Kindle creator agrees with me, by the way. I'll let him do the talking: "Well, I believe that reading deserves a dedicated device. For people who are readers, reading is important to them. And you don't want to read for three hours on a backlit LCD screen." I myself am a reader. What are you?

MK: What am I? I'm an AMERICAN. And you know what Americans like to do? They like to read books on their phones. To wit: In October 2009, 20 percent of the new applications on the iPhone were books. Of course, this whole discussion might be moot after Wednesday of this week, when the next big thing is unveiled to the world and our e-readers are relegated to the closet with all the other other “next big things” from years past. I mean, let's face it: Any technology older than six months is more or less passe, right?

RH: Oh, totally. What were we talking about again?

Tags for this post: gadgets