» If I get an e-reader (Barnes and Noble Nook) or something like kindle, will I someday lose the books I buy? Kindle 2: KINDLE GADGET

If I get an e-reader (Barnes and Noble Nook) or something like kindle, will I someday lose the books I buy?

Published in October 30th, 2009

I always thought e-readers were stupid because I like to sit down with a good old paper and ink book and have the item solid in my hand, so when the thought of buying the Kindle crossed my mind, I immediately thought better of it. But I just saw the new Barnes and Noble Nook, and…it looks awesome. It’s hard for a book lover not to want it, and with the books on it being sold cheaper than they are in paper form, the item will eventually pay for itself. I have a huge concern though. Will I be able to keep the books forever? Like…will I still have the books in 40 years if I keep my Nook? Or will the Nook just stop being sold however many years from now and have all the books I bought just…gone. If your not sure about the nook, will it work that way with the kindle? I plan on having my books for ever and ever, and I really don’t want to buy an e-reader just to buy books that will be lost one day. That’s like…just buying a whole bunch of books and just deciding to burn them one day. So…can anyone give me some advice?

1 user responded in " If I get an e-reader (Barnes and Noble Nook) or something like kindle, will I someday lose the books I buy? "

Natural said, in October 30th, 2009 at 11:27 pm

As far as I know, you can backup the books you get to your computer for both the Nook and the Kindle, so no need to worry about losing any books.

And between the Kindle and the Nook, from the official page of B&N, here is how the Nook compares with the Kindle:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/compare/

Since Barnes and Noble page is only mentioning the advantage of the Nook over the Kindle, let me try to tell more about the benefit of the Kindle 2 over the Nook:

- There is no internet browser for the Nook. So even with Wi-Fi, you can only use it to purchase book. You cannot do searching in Google, Wikipedia, check email, etc., like what you can do with the Kindle.

- The Amazon Kindle has international free 3G wireless which covers over 100 countries. So even if you’re in places like the UK or Australia, you can access the internet with the Kindle free of charge. The Nook has wireless only within the U.S., and is limited for use of buying books only

- The Kindle is available outside the U.S. (it ships to 176 countries), while the Nook only ship within the U.S. at this moment.

- The Kindle has text-to-speech function, so it can treat an ebook like audio book. This function is not present on the Nook.

- Amazon is already doing some change after the Nook is announced (still more than one month for it to be available). They dropped the price of their International Kindle even further. And they are going to release a PC software which can read their Kindle books.

One more thing to be aware is that, at first glance you may think the Nook can read ebooks with color touch screen. But indeed the color touch screen is only a small screen beneath the greyscale eink screen, and seems it is only used to browse the cover of ebooks.

In my opinion, it is a tie between the Kindle and the Barnes and Noble. But if you may travel and you enjoy reading during your trip, you should go for the Kindle for sure. Moreover, I trust the Kindle will come up with some strategies very soon, like improving their lending book function. The Kindle is the biggest player in the ereader market right now, and I believe it will put enormous effort to hold its position.

I recommend this article as well, it is the best review on ebook readers I’ve ever read:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Freview%2FR3QM7LGL62MZ4X%3Fie%3DUTF8%26ref%255F%3Dcm%255Fcr%255Frdp%255Fperm&tag=ereader-2-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=390957

Hope this helps you decide.