Barnes & Noble's Nook, Reviewed
harrymcc writes "Barnes & Noble's Nook — the most significant e-reader since Amazon's original Kindle — hits B&N's retail stores today. I've published an extensive review of the device, which is also the first e-reader to run Google's Android OS: It's an interesting and capable gadget in many ways, but the interface — which is sluggish and somewhat quirky — isn't polished enough to render it a Kindle killer."
Bingo. No Kindle for me. Ever.
I did want one, and saw myself inevitably getting one when the price reached a reasonable altitude.
But they wrote me off with that stunt. Now any reader I do settle on must establish to my satisfaction that it does not have that "feature".
The fact that it shares the same price point doesn't imply price fixing or stop it being beneficial to consumers. Firstly, if the B&N device is 'better' it is effectively cheaper than the Kindle. Secondly, if both devices are exactly even then sales should begin to spread between the two, this will encourage one of the parties to drop the price in order to gain the others market share.
Factor in other benefits like removing some dominance from Amazon's position as ebook superpower, which will hopefully add competition to book pricing and limit anti-consumer licensing/limitations and this seems (as it should) like a good thing for us little people.