My BFF Sandy Davis has done it again. Recently she reported on her Electronic Book Reader research that paid off with All The Reasons To Choose Nook Over Kindle. Here’s the latest . . .
Nook News! For one thing: Prices are Down
Guest Post by Sandy Davis
Yesterday, Barnes and Noble made an exciting Nook announcement. There is a brand new version of Nook which uses wireless internet access only — instead of 3G and wi-fi. And the price is only $149!
It has all the same features as the 3G/wi-fi Nook except that in order to download books, you have to be on your home wireless network, a wi-fi hotspot or at a Barnes & Noble Store.
For those of you who don’t get out much and have constant wireless access, this could be a great choice for you!
I am very glad I have the 3G option because I can download books at work, on the beach (sand not recommended for Nook) or at my mom’s house where there is no wireless access.
C-Net calls it “The best e-reader for $149”, but of course there aren’t many around at that price! It’s a deal.
Barnes and Noble also announced a price reduction on the 3G/wi-fi Nook to $199. This is no doubt in response to Amazon’s lowering of the price on the Kindle this week to $189. If you have been waiting for the prices to come down on e-readers, here is your big chance!
The software for Nook also got an update this week to version 1.4.0.
Three new features worth noting:
1. Extended AT&T Wi-Fi Hotspot support — FREE and seamless connection to AT&T’s entire nationwide Wi-Fi network including restaurants, hotels and additional locations, and wherever you see an AT&T Wi-Fi sign. Nook also looks for wi-fi first instead of connecting first to 3G.
2. New extra extra large font size for all us aging Baby Boomers!
3. Go-To Page feature allows users to go to a specific page in their eBook. This was the most requested user feature and it is great!
I also found a great user guide for the Nook. It is called Using Nook by Jim Cheshire, a senior escalation engineer at Microsoft on the ASP.NET and IIS teams. Jim has worked on the FrontPage, Visual Basic, ASP, IIS, and ASP.NET teams at Microsoft for more than 10 years. He has been entrenched in nook research and use since he first heard about the new device and has delved into every aspect of it, including hacking it. Even before getting his hands on one, he researched it and listened to the experts discuss its use. He was an early adopter, an avid reader, and a self-proclaimed nook expert.
Using Nook contains 15 chapters of tips, tutorials and information about how to get the most out of your Nook. The fist chapters rely largely on material from the manual, but the later chapters include information about locating third party books, hacking the Nook to download and extract the Android SDK, using NookLauncher, adding applications to your laucher and using Trook and Calibre. For those of you Nookies who want to really tweak and play with your Nook, this is the book for you! The digital version is available for $4.99 at barnesandnoble.com.
Disclaimer: I love the fact that Sandy loves her Nook, but neither of us has gotten it for free. So this is definitely an unsollicited Rave!
What do YOU think about the Nook?