I bought a nook

I bought a nook. The low-cost wifi version. Back in September. Why would I buy a nook when I already have an iPad? Don’t get me wrong, I love the iPad. It is a great browsing, playing, movie-and-TV watching, writing and reading device. Nothing Else even comes close. I’m writing this right now on it. But for extended reading, particularly in the outdoors in bright sunlight, it’s LCD screen, as bright and richly colored as it is, fades and isn’t up to the task. Even indoors, reading a book – plain text – over a long time, I have noticed a bit of the infamous LCD-induced eye strain many have talk about. If you read in short periods or something in color, like a magazine or browsing the Web, the iPad is perfect. For a novel that could consume hours, e-ink, found on the nook, Kindle, Sony Reader, and other dedicated ebook readers, is easier on the eyes, for now.

At the end of September, the weekend before starting a new job*, Jennifer and I decided to go on a quick trip to Florida to get some beach time. I wanted to read on the beach and I knew by then that iPad, as good as it was for so many things, wasn’t ready for that. So I bought a nook. But why a nook from Barnes & Noble rather than Amazon’s Kindle? Easy… ePub.

While it is the undisputed leader in ebook device and content sales, Amazon’s Kindle has one significant weakness. It is locked to a proprietary ebook format. Amazon merely bought a former leader in ebook creation, Mobipocket, and adapted it’s .MOBI format into a special DRM-locked Amazon Kindle .AZW format. No one other than Amazon delivered ebooks in this format. However, Sony, Barnes & Noble and even Apple have all adopted the open ePub format and put their respective DRM wrappers around it for their stores. And since both Sony and B&N both use a version of Adobe’s Digital Editions DRM, it is theoretically possible to buy books from Sony’s online ebook store and read them on B&N’s nook device.

In addition, almost all libraries that are venturing into ebooks are using the ePub format with Adobe DRM. So it is also possible to check out rental ebooks from some libraries (including my local county library) and read them on the nook. With the Kindle, you are stuck with buying from Amazon’s admittedly great store or scrounging up DRM-free .AZW or .MOBI ebook files somehow (one of my favorite publishers, Baen Books, provides DRM-free ebooks in both .MOBI and .ePub formats). So while Amazon’s latest Kindle is arguably a higher-contrast, lighter weight, overall better ereading device than B&N’s nook (excluding the new Nook Color), the nook offers more flexibility in how and where you can get your books.

As a bonus, both Amazon and B&N have ereading apps available for the iPad and iPhone. So anything you buy from them can be read on those devices, and more, as well. So I can start a book on my nook at the beach and then pick up where I left off later in bed on my iPad. It truly can be the best of all reading worlds.

Nevertheless, I have bought ebooks from Apple’s iBookstore, Amazon’s Kindle store, and Barnes & Noble’s nookBooks store, but mostly the latter. Being able to read a book on either iPad or nook is a benefit only B&N’s store offers amongst those three. Those I have gotten from Apple or Amazon have primarily either been free books or books that are best on the larger format screen of the iPad, like computer reference books or children’s books.

So, for now, I have an iPad and a nook for reading. And that’s where I find I do most of my reading these days, on my nook or on my iPad. I may still buy some paper books, but they’ll be special cases. And, yes, I’m looking forward to what an iPad 2 and, hopefully, an e-ink nook 2 will bring to the table.

The future is here.

* – In September I took a new job in a technology-related field. However, my work is completely unrelated to and not involved with the consumer electronics industry, nor any of the technology commented on here; nor do I have any special information into these areas resulting from my new position. The opinions and ideas expressed here are solely my own and do not reflect the opinions or positions of my employer.