...Barnes & Noble Nook

B&N Nook

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WiFi + 3G | WiFi only

I read a fair number of books, so when the eBook readers started coming out some years back, I started watching them. They were all rather expensive at first, and most of them used black and white or greyscale LCD/LED displays which at the time resulted in extremely short battery lives. On top of these hardware limitation, was a lack of content. EBooks were common, but they weren't easy to purchase or move around and required various methods to utilize their DRM that made them difficult to use on eReaders. They just weren't a practical solution yet.

Then along came eInk. This new display technology is a bit like a digital Etch-a-Sketch, it moves pigment on and off a visible surface, only in this case each pixel is self contained rather than being a big box of metallic dust. The first few eReaders to use eInk were of course black and white, or limited greyscale, and there was still no solid source of reading material to put on them yet.

Then came the Kindle.

Amazon.com started off as a book source, so they already had a huge library of books to work with, and by creating their own eReader they were able to get past the limitations of other readers and combine their resources with the eReader technology. Unfortunately, they were still expensive, and worse yet, the first few Kindle versions either couldn't handle public formats like PDF, or required conversion that often broke the formatting, jumbling the content.

But, the Kindle was a good device, and it became enough of a hit to cause a stir.

A few years and a few Kindle versions later, after seeing the success and potential in the market, a competitor steps forward. Barnes and Noble launches their Nook, an eReader utilizing their already massive library of books on top of Google's open platform, Android.

The Nook solved the remaining problems still suffered by the Kindle. Native PDF support, as well as support of various other open formats, without conversion, and without destroying the layout. The Nook features the same wifi and AT&T cellular capabilities as the Kindle, but also added a wifi-only web-browser and the ability to share books with friends. Amazon.com has recently added a 3G enabled web-browser to the Kindle as well. B&N's service also includes the ability to read books free of charge, provided you're connected to a B&N hotspot inside their stores, something Amazon.com is unable to offer currently. With a little work, you can even load custom Android builds into the Nook to add even more features (although doing so voids your warranty).

Unlike the Kindle, the Nook features a second display that grants it touchscreen capability, although I find their utilization of it to be minimal and not a significant gain over the Kindle's keyboard. One feature of the touchscreen I do like, however, is the ability to swipe my finger across the blacked out touchscreen to flip pages similar to a paper book.

The Nook's eInk display is nearly identical to the Kindle, with similar performance and battery life, although the touchscreen LCD does cause the overall battery life to suffer slightly by comparison. Setting a shorter screen timeout helps this.

B&N's book library has been fairly good for the material I read, although older books in certain genres (Fantasy for instance) are difficult if not impossible to find.

The PDF support is reasonably solid, allowing you to use the original PDF layout, or switch to an unformatted layout using larger, more readable, font sizes. I would like to see a true page zoom feature though, as currently the only way to "zoom" is to increase the font size, which turns off the original formatted layout and switches to the unformatted layout. Kindle has since improved its PDF support as well, although I have no first-hand experience with its functionality.

B&N has been really good about updating the Nook, and it's already on its fifth software revision. Each revision has improved performance, stability, and has fixed bugs and added additional features and support.

The cellular connection works fairly well, although I've run into many places, even inside larger cities, where AT&T's coverage is lacking and the Nook is unable to connect as a result. The wifi is handy in these instances.

Also unlike the Kindle, the Nook has a removable back cover with a user replaceable battery and a MicroSD slot for expanding its storage.

Aside from the slightly short battery life, the page turning buttons on the side of the Nook feel slightly flimsy and sometime have an audible snap sound as they catch the edge of the backing. The device is also prone to appearing to lock up when the battery is too low to operate; fully charging it before powering it back on resolves this issue however.

All told, both the Nook and the Kindle are very solid eReaders, and I would recommend either one to avid readers.

...Smart Phones

Being a gadet freak, I go through a lot of phones, and they're pretty much always smart phones. I've owned three different SideKicks, several Windows Mobile and several Android OS phones now. I've also researched various RIM, Symbian, iOS and PalmOS devices over the years.

So why smart phones?

Honestly, I rarely use my phone, I need it for business and emergencies, but I just don't like talking to people if I can text instead. I like the smart phones because of everything else they can do. They're better at texting than standard phones, and there's a huge selection of applications for accomplishing other tasks as well.

I used to own a Palm TX that I used for taking notes, tracking my car mileage, and managing my bank account. It was also handy for carrying documents around in digital form. At the time, there weren't many smart phone choices yet, but I eventually ended up with my first Sidekick.

SickKick's OS is pretty slick for light users, people that just want the social network and mini-games will enjoy this phone, but it's not real strong at anything else. It's just not designed for adult tasks.

Eventually I graduated up to Windows Mobile 6, where I was finally able to start using more business apps and was able to replace all of my Palm TX apps (except my universal remote control, darn them for not equipping smart phones with IR ;).

Windows Mobile was an excellent business platform, and did texting pretty nice as well. But, along with being a tech head, I'm also quite a bit of a gamer. I enjoy more than just mini-games, and honestly Windows Mobile couldn't even do them very well due to it's low end hardware and lack of graphics power.

Symbian and RIM were way too business oriented, and while both are quite strong at business, they weren't "fun" phones to own. RIM was especially prevalent with all the different BlackBerrys coming out on every telephone company imaginable, but Windows Mobile was keeping pace.

After a few Windows Mobile 6 phones, Apple had come out with iOS. And at first, this was great. Apple set a new bar, but unfortunately they made several major mistakes. No MMS, no copy/paste, and stuck on AT&T, who at the time thought a $750 deposit on top of the price of the phone and first month's bill, was a fair price. Needless to say, I passed on iOS because it really didn't offer enough above Windows Mobile to justify the cost.

Then comes the 3G networks, and with them, Android OS.Android OS was, and continues to be everything iOS wants to be but has yet to achieve. Android OS was fun, Android OS was business, and Android OS was social. But most importantly, Android OS is an open platform.Right off the bat, Android OS had everything iOS had and then some, it could even copy/paste, MMS, and was scheduled to launch on several major telecomm networks. Unfortunately, they still lacked enterprise support.

Of course, Apple had to respond, they fixed the missing features in iOS in an attempt to catch up to Android OS. But Android OS's open nature means it continued to evolve and grow, receiving speed, stability, and feature updates including enterprise support all faster than Apple has been able to keep up.

Here we are in the present day, and Apple is still playing the catch up game, as Android OS takes over more and more of the market. Apple releases its pseudo-tablet iPad and finally catches up to the 3G revolution; Android comes out with multiple pseudo-tablet chocies, an eBook reader, dozens of new 3G and 4G phones, and even dedicated GPS devices.

Then all of a sudden, FUMBLE! Apple pushes an embarrassingly broken phone to market. The iPhone 4G and it's broken antenna, video chat that only works on wifi, and nothing new from previous models. But, the raving Apple fans continue to buy it all up, refusing to admit that Apple's broken offering is anything less than perfection.

Honestly, I think the different OSes have their place. For open development, a fun phone with loads of power and customizability, go with Android OS. For business, especially enterprise, go with RIM (BlackBerry). For younger socialites, go with SideKick. And if you just have tons of money to blow on a brand name so you can look cool and don't care about the problems and draconian practices, go iOS.