Barnes & Noble NOOK ebook reader (WiFi + 3G)[B&W]

by Barnes & Noble

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches ; 1.2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: 1400599997
• Item model number: NOOK WIFI + 3G
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (191 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,845 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 25, 2009

Product Description

Choose an eBook using the beautiful color touch screen, then watch it appear instantly on the E Ink® display, where text appears as crisp as a printed page. The 16-level gray scale display offers great contrast with no glare or backlight. Choose from five font sizes so you can read with ease.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1,725 of 1,749 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nook versus Kindle, May 31, 2010

By 

Connecticut Suppo (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Barnes & Noble NOOK ebook reader (WiFi + 3G)[B&W] (Electronics)

Which is better, the Nook or the Kindle?

I spent much time researching the available e-readers because I knew that once I committed to one that I would be spending a lot of money over time to build a substantial library. Therefore I wanted to be certain that I was investing in the right platform so I wouldn't have to repurchase books for a new reader if I became unhappy with my current one. I am submitting this review because I want to help those who were in my position not too long ago.

I have owned both the Kindle 1 and Nook, and borrowed a Kindle 2 prior to purchasing my Nook. I started off with the Kindle 1 when it was new, then became a little disenchanted when the Kindle 2 came out. It was then that the Nook had been out for about 6 months, and I decided to purchase it for reasons I will list later in this review.

I have been a long-time Amazon customer, an affiliate, and even a publisher of my own work through CreateSpace. I also admire the CEO's ambition of converting every book ever printed into electronic format. Amazon is a great company with great vision, so it is disappointing (and a little ironic) for me to conclude that at this time, the Nook is far superior to the Kindle in almost every way except one (which I will also explain). I would have much preferred to stick with the Kindle since I had started building a library through Amazon, but my honest assessment is that the Nook is a better reader.

A lot of reviews have already addressed the advantages and disadvantages of both readers, so I will try to only contribute new information here, or reiterate what I think is most important in anyone's consideration when comparing the two.

I defected from the Kindle for several reasons:

1. I did not like the awkward user interface and hardware. Though the Kindle 2 was an improvement in several ways, it still didn't feel as comfortable as the Nook. On both the 1 and 2 I had to be careful not to accidentally press the page turn buttons. On the Nook, because of the "hard set" buttons, I have never had this problem. It is much easier and comfortable to hold the Nook. On a less important note, the Nook's minimalist design simply looks better.

2. I was growing tired of being tied to the Amazon proprietary platform. I believe the Nook, especially over time, will provide more opportunities for book buying and developing open platform applications.

3. The Nook has a changeable battery and SD slot for additional memory. The Kindle 2 dropped both features. These two factors alone were enough to drive me away from the Kindle 2. Who wants to ship off their reader to have a battery changed? This is a hassle and also considerably more expensive. As for the memory slot, I prefer to be able to organize my content without having to go online. Unit Director for the Kindle, Charlie Tritschler, was quoted in COMPUTERWORLD as stating: "That's room for 1,500 books," Tritschler said, noting that any book a Kindle user buys is backed up on Amazon's servers -- and is available to the reader at any time. "There's no need for additional storage."

What? No need for additional storage? That is an opinion and not a fact. I found this comment to be quite condescending and narrow-minded. Mr. Tritschler made the common mistake of considering only his viewpoint and totally ignored the desire of many consumers, including myself. For example, [...] (which is owned by Amazon) sells audio books online. Should a person have a penchant for buying audio books, that built-in 2GB is going to fill up quickly. As someone who travels frequently, I don't always have the time or resources to go back online and redesign my library. Also, as many travelers know, you do not always know what you will be in the mood for, so it would be nice if you could simply take your memory cards with you. And yes, Mr. Tritschler, even without audio books, there will be those of us who will actually own more than 1500 books eventually.

When I purchased the Nook, it had been out for about 6 months already, so I started with firmware version 1.3 and did not have to suffer all of the issues the early purchasers experienced. One thing I do not understand is that you can walk into a physical B&N store and purchase the Nook for [...], so why is it being sold on Amazon by a third party for [...]? Caveat Emptor.

My experience with the Nook has been far superior to that of the Kindle. I have not had any of the problems expressed by others in their reviews, mainly due to the updated firmware, no doubt. The Nook is comfortable to hold, easy to navigate, turns pages quickly and easily, has a clear display, and the battery life has not been an issue (about 5-7 days without recharging but also without going online, which I only do with my computer).

I agree with the reviewer who complained there was no way to really organize the content, but that will probably be addressed in time. I think it is important to keep in mind that Nook has only been out for a few months, so patience will be a virtue. However, one feature on the Nook that I did not notice on the Kindle was the ability to "archive" books. So if you have a few dozen or hundreds of books, you could actually archive all of them except the one or more you are reading so that your library screen is not cluttered with books. This alone is a big advantage over the Kindle.

The one advantage that the Kindle has at this time (and this will likely change over time) is its selection of books, especially through Mobile Reference (which I believe is owned by Amazon in addition to [...]. All ebook manufacturers are throwing around some big numbers when it comes to book availability. What exactly does it mean to have over a million books available? I find these numbers misleading because most of these books are not, in my opinion, feasible to download. For example, when I tried to download a free "classic" from Google books, it had a very poor presentation, as the books was simply scanned with defects and all (including the book owner's scribbled margin notes!) The links of course were not functional (and probably were not meant to be), and several pages were corrupted so that there were many strange and illegible characters in the text. You get what you pay for. Personally, I would rather spend 99 cents or two dollars for a version of a classic that has been formatted for the Nook, or epub format, that has working links and clean text, especially considering that theoretically, thanks to the digital age, I will only have to purchase these books once in my lifetime.

What I miss on the Nook are the complete collections of classic authors (and again, this may change over time). For example, I would love to have the complete works of Jack London, Henry James, etc which are easily purchased on Amazon but not on the Nook (yet). This was the only issue causing me concern about switching to the Nook. I strongly believe that if the Kindle was just like the Nook in design and firmware, Amazon would be unbeatable. The Nook's aesthetic and practical structure combined with Amazon's vision and content would make it a no-brainer for me personally. Unfortunately, I believe Amazon underestimated the important of memory cards and changeable batteries, in addition to having probably the worst physical design on the market. And its closed format does not help either.

Overall, I would have to recommend the Nook far and above the Kindle. Up until now I have been a die-hard Amazon acolyte, but the Nook was good enough to convert me.

6/25/2010 UPDATE
It has been about 4 weeks since I initially posted this review. I hope that it has been helpful to those trying to make a decision. Since the initial posting, firmware version 1.4 was released, which added another font size, faster page turns, and the conspicuously absent GO TO PAGE option. Also, I have noticed that more and more books are being converted to the nook, especially from Mobile Reference where I have historically purchased my classic collections. My one prior concern about the nook over the Kindle has now been removed. I have been able to purchase the complete works of such authors as Jack London, James Joyce, O. Henry, Sinclair Lewis, and E.R. Burroughs. Still waiting on Dickens and a few others, but I am sure it is just a matter of time as I see the trend of an increasing selection for the nook.

With the recent firmware update and the dramatic price drop (probably in anticipation of the nook 2 supposedly to be released this year), the nook is even more preferable now than before. I understand that reviews are by nature subjective, but I am perplexed by the recent negative reviews. I can certainly understand the complaints of the owners who purchased the nook with the initial bugs and issues before the firmware updates, but the nook is certainly not worthless or junk at this point. I have been through many e-readers over the past twenty years and the nook is the best I have seen. Some of the reviews are critical of the nook's operating system, for example, claiming it to be clunky or inefficient, yet offering no alternatives or detailing how it could be improved.

In further response to these "negative" reviews, I would also like to point out that at this time, based on my admittedly limited technical understanding, that e-ink technology cannot be integrated with back-lighting, which is why it is not offered on e-readers with e-ink technology. I believe it has to do with the opacity of the screen itself, which does not allow light to penetrate. I wouldn't be surprised to see this change in the future, but I don't think it should be considered a valid criticism at this time due to the limits of currently available technology.

I hope the nook hardware... Read more ›

166 of 166 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comparison: Nook vs. Kindle 3 vs. Sony Touch from a library book lover, July 20, 2010

By 

A. Boston (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Barnes & Noble NOOK ebook reader (WiFi + 3G)[B&W] (Electronics)

MORE UPDATES at the bottom of my review!

My review includes details of Kindle 3, the newest version! With the time period, I could still return my nook, but I'm still completely in love with it and don't want the kindle for the reasons below.

I was one of those people who was averse to the idea of an e-reader for a long time. I liked the feel of a real book, I was in love with free books at the library, why would I start paying for them? Then, my library got "overdrive", which is e-books FREE from the library. Then one day soon after, I woke up and the urge for an e-reader was there. The Nook was my final choice. It took a lot of back and forth and research to get to this point. I bought and tried the Sony Touch reader, returned it, and went and got the Nook. I really honestly wanted the Kindle most, because I'm a loyalist. I love Amazon and felt really comfortable here if I decided to actually start purchasing books again. But below, I'll give you comparisons to the three big readers and the reasons I got the nook:
- Nook(N) by barnes & noble
- Kindle 3(K) by amazon.com
- Sony Reader Touch(ST)
1. My biggest decision maker was Epub. This is the format in which you can take ebooks out of the library, so I needed whatever I got to be Epub friendly.

N: The Nook is epub friendly. As well as PDF, and many other formats.
K: The Kindle won't use Epub, which was all I needed to know. It mainly uses it's own Amazon format,while it also uses PDF, mobi and a few others. It makes me feel like Amazon is being greedy, wanting us to only use and buy books from the amazon site. Don't they understand that I love my library?
ST: Sony reader is Epub friendly. pretty much the same as the nook.

2. PRICE!

N: 149 with wifi
ST: 169 NO WIFI
K: 139 with wifi(or 189 with wifi and free 3G)


While kindle 3 is 10 dollars cheaper, it doesn't give me those free library books, so it really doesn't make any difference to me.

*You can now lend some books from the Nook for 14 days to a friend with their new "lend me" technology. While this is in beta stages, and not ALL books are lendable. It depends on the agreement with the publisher. The other two you cannot lend at all.

*The Nook has a replaceable, rechargable battery. So it'll last awhile, but when its dwindling, you can spend 30 bucks and put a new one in yourself. For the Kindles, they are sealed inside. People have said you can do it yourself, but you must be tech savvy. Or you can send it away to Amazon for about the cost of [...]+shipping charges and they'll replace it for you.

*You can expand your memory on the Nook and on the Sony touch. The Kindle you cannot, though the Kindle will hold 3,500 books, don't know if you need more space then that?!

*Nook has a fancy color touch screen at the bottom. While the Sony touch has a touch screen(the entire screen), it was slow to respond, very klunky and not very pretty. The kindle is loaded with buttons along the outside of the screen.

* all three have a built in dictionary, which I think is just awesome.

*The new kindle now meets with the nook on their slim width. People used to say the nook was more comfortable to hold because of the width, now the kindle will be as well.

*Yet, the Nook is heavier by about 3 oz then the Kindle or Sony.

*The Nook battery life lasts about 10 days with wifi off, the Sony has 14 days, and the new kindle is up to a month with wifi off(3 weeks with it on)This wasn't a big deal to me, and I was more interested in the other features the Nook DID have, like replaceable battery and expandable memory.

*And you may be wondering, why did I purchase a Sony Touch, and then scamper back hours later to return it? Well. When I got it out of the box, it wasn't techy enough for me. It felt like a very basic, bare bones E-reader. And I already had in my head all the things you hear about the nook: books more expensive, and for some reason I thought it wasn't epub friendly. But the moment I had that Sony in my hand, I went to look at the nook more indepth online. The Sony online library was nothing in comparison to Kindle's Amazon.com or Nook's Barnes & Noble. One of my favorite reads recently was The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. It was nowhere to be found on Sony. That gave me a bad taste in my mouth.

*In the past people have complained that Barnes & Noble is significantly more expensive then Amazon. I did some price comparisons of big titles, and found them most of the time to be exactly the same. I think Barnes & Noble might be trying to keep in line with Amazon to draw more readers(Like ME!) into getting the Nook.

On the whole, the nook is everything I wanted. I've downloaded some free classics from google books, I've taken out library ebooks and it was REALLY easy! I even bought my first book(well, ebook) in a long time. Despite being a new release, it was under ten bucks. I also bought another book I've been meaning to read for years for under four dollars. The nook is comfortable to hold with one hand. I like the using the touch screen to "swipe" and turn pages. And tops on my list, I didn't feel horrificly guilty for buying it. One fifty is a reasonable price for such a fun new book reader.


Update Oct '10: A software update is coming in Nov:"dramatically increase page turn speed, customized B&N Library organization and password protection. It also includes the ability to sync across all NOOK and all devices enabled with our free NOOK apps, by syncing your last page read. If you forget your NOOK at home, use the NOOK app for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Android smartphone or PC to pick up where you left off. And, the next time you pick up your NOOK, the Reading Now page will be updated and ready to go.

Update Dec '10: The update was a pinch to install, and it has some stellar perks that make the nook even more loveable. The shelving option it a lot of fun for those people who like to organize. You can name a shelf anything you want. The only limit is your Barnes and Noble book will stay in their Barnes folder, while any other books you have will stay in My Documents. The page turn is very fast. I do read across multiple devices, but for most people that will be a great new feature.

177 of 180 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Good, Despite Its Quirks, February 8, 2010

By 

Deborah A. Woehr (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Barnes & Noble NOOK ebook reader (WiFi + 3G)[B&W] (Electronics)

Despite all of the negative reviews, I decided to take a chance and buy the nook, once I tested it out at my local B&N. I loved the look and feel of this device and was looking forward to the convenience of buying more books without adding more clutter to my already cluttered bookcases. I read all of the pros and cons of owning a Kindle and compared it to the pros and cons of owning a nook. The nook won because of its versatility (epub format, book lending, etc).

My nook arrived on January 28th. Since then, I've experienced one crash and had to figure out how to use the touchscreen so that I can flip the pages without having to use the arrow keys. The latter took some practice, but I eventually mastered it and have been enjoying this feature ever since. I've also read three books in the space of a week, which is a personal record for me, as it normally takes two weeks for me to read a single paperback, longer if I'm reading an ebook on an LCD screen.

The eInk technology is fabulous. I can read all day (and do) without eyestrain. The letters are very crisp on a plain white background. Even better, you can adjust the font size from small to extra large. Not only that but the nook comes with several fonts: Amasis, Helvetica Neue and Light Classic. I'm happy with the Amasis as it resembles Times Roman.

My only complaint so far is that I am not able to categorize my books into categories. At the moment, I'm forced to wade through my list until I find the book that I want to read. B&N has already sent out an update, which is a good improvement over the old interface. While the touch interface can be a bit buggy (Sometimes you have to flick your finger more than once or use the arrow keys to turn the page.), I can turn pages in one second compared to the 2-3 seconds it would take with the original software. That wasn't a big deal until I received the upgrade.

I also like what they've done with the bookmarks feature. Before, they had a strange numerical format for bookmarks. With this upgrade, it lists the page that you bookmarked, which is much nicer.

I love how I can download samples of ebooks directly from my nook without having to rely on the B&N site to do everything. Once you finish the sample, you have the option to buy. If you decide to buy the book, you will be taken to the last page you read so that you can continue from there. You can also archive the books that you've read directly from your nook with the press of a button, which helps manage your list.

Sideloading my pdf ebooks onto my nook was an easy experience. However, you can't categorize your documents; you can only sort them by title or author.

Another great aspect of owning a nook is that you can check out ebooks from your local libraries (see [...] for a list of libraries near you), sideload books that you have bought from Fictionwise and other ebook stores, and download free ebooks from either the B&N site or Google Books. That's what ultimately sold me on the nook, the versatility and freedom to choose where I want to buy or download free ebooks. The nook is not proprietary, unlike the Kindle and the soon-to-be-released iPad.

The interface is very easy to use. It comes with a manual that you can read on the device, or on the B&N website. If you're still stuck on an issue, I found this great forum ([...]) with friendly people who can help you.

I've yet to check out the Lend feature because my family and friends have yet to embrace this technology.

Other than my issue with organization, I am really enjoying my nook. I'm looking forward to reading many books in the future, thanks to this wonderful device. Highly recommended.

Side note: I agree with S. Dayton about the iPad. After reading a few ebooks on my iTouch and my Mac, I have to agree with him about the eyestrain. For casual surfing and watching video, LCD works fine. But for longterm reading, eInk is the way to go.