Although I was very happy with my Nook Simple Touch, The Kindle Touch was on sale for $49 on Black Friday and my husband talked me into getting myself one for Christmas. Since I had both I decided to do a bit of a comparison. If you have tried one or both I would love to hear what you think as well. Have a different e-reader all together? Tell me about it.
In the Box: I purchased my Simple Touch Nook a few years ago so this might have changed, but I got my Nook, USB cord, and a wall adapter.
The Kindle box included the Kindle and a USB cord. It would be nice if they included a wall adapter, but no one does these days. Sigh...
Size/weight: Both devices have a 6" display. The Simple Touch Nook weighs 7.48 oz. and the Kindle weighs 6.7 ounces.
Feel: I like the feel of the Nook Simple Touch better. Its has a soft and smooth rubber type backing that is easy to hold.
The the Kindle is just plastic. This is bad. It slips through my fingers easily and if I am holding it for a long time my fingers sweat (making it more likely I will drop it on my face while laying in bed lol). They seriously need to fix this.
Touch Screen: Both touch screens are easy to use and quick to respond. The Kindle is a little faster in speed.
Adding books: With the Nook, unless you purchase the book from Barnes and Noble you have to plug your nook in, add the file to Adobe Digital Edition, then add it to your nook.
With the Kindle, if you don't purchase the book from Amazon you can simply email your book to your kindle email address and it's added to your device over wifi. "WHAT" you say? YES it's that easy. Man I have been missing out.
Deleting Books: With the Nook you have to again plug it into your computer, open Adobe Digital Edition, then select and delete it. If you purchase it from Barnes and Noble, you can archive the title by going to Barnes and Noble, logging into your nook and archiving it there.
With the Kindle you can simply hold and touch the book icon on your Kindle until a screen pops up and select remove from device. Your book is still on your Amazon account and you can re-send it at anytime.
Battery Life: You know this one is hard for me to gauge because I really don't pay attention. When the battery icon alerted me on my Nook, I just plugged it in. I never thought that it was a poor battery life though. I started using my Kindle on December 4th and have not been notified to charge it yet so, that is a plus (and I have had wifi on the whole time, the charge is getting pretty low though). The official stats state:
Nook: Up to 2 months with wireless off based on 1 hour of daily reading.
Kindle: A single charge lasts up to four weeks, based on a half hour of reading per day with wireless off.
Other: The Kindle's lack of page numbers is really annoying. I like having the ability to glance down and seeing how far into a book I am. The Kindle does not allow this. HUGE bummer. The Kindle allows you to highlight passages and makes notes which the Nook does not. It's a nice feature to have and I have already used it. The Kindle has some quirk I have yet to figure out. When I drop it on my head while reading (yes this does happen often as like I said above, its slippery plastic shell is not cool) or hits something on accident when I set it down, it changes the font size. Kinda annoying. Anyone know if I can turn off what ever feature is causing this?
I feel a bit bad for my Nook because it has treated me so well, but the ease of adding books on a Kindle is too much for me to pass up. So, although I will be keeping my Nook because it still has a lot of books on it I haven't read, my Kindle will now be my main reader.
