Earlier this week I noticed that Amazon had dropped the price of their Kindle to $189, and I said to myself, wow they’re getting close to my price point. My price point is the price I think a gadget should cost before I’m willing to buy it. And because ereaders are really one dimensional (used mostly for reading), I’m thinking they should be priced around $150 or lower. Turns out Barnes & Noble had lowered their price as well, and yes, it now costs $149 for the wifi only version. So I bought one.
Turns out the Nook as a few features that are better than the Kindle, but this is not a comparison. I chose the Nook because it was less expensive. But now that I own one, I really do appreciate the SD card expansion since I can listen to music on this thing too. I like that it has a replaceable battery and reads epub files, which all of my current books are in the epub format. And it has wifi, but I probably won’t even use that. But with a built in browser, you never know.
I love the size of the Nook. It really feels like I’m carrying around a paperback novel when I have it, especially with the leather cover I bought for it. It took a while to get used to no back lighting on the screen. I had to keep turning on lamps and sitting next to a light source. After read ebooks on my Blackberry, iTouch and Droid for the past two years, it was hard to get used to no light.
Getting the Nook up and running was a breeze. I wouldn’t say that this is a great tool for textbooks, as the notetaking and bookmarking features are a bit tedious, but for straight up reading, this thing is a winner. And with the use of Calibre, a free and open source e-book library management application, it’s easy to get your own content uploaded to the Nook. Calibre can convert files and send them directly to the device once it’s connected to your computer.
I’m happy with my purchase. My Nook will gets lots of use, but unfortunately with this new device and my Droid phone, I really have no use for my old iPod Touch. 
Have a look at my new Nook:
