Earlier this week Barnes & Noble unveiled their highly anticipated eReader - the Nook. With features pulling from Sony's eReader and Amazon's Kindle - it's a strong contender in the eReader market. So strong in fact, that's it's made me begin to wonder if it's time for me to jump into the fray - pick a side - and convert to eBooks.



Despite my love of reading - or perhaps because of it - I've never really considered purchasing an eReader. When initially in development my first impression was that of amusement. Why on earth would I spend hundreds of dollars on a novelty piece of technology that is only for reading books? A piece of technology that isn't even fully accepted by the literary world, and ergo stunted before it even had a chance to fully develop? A piece of technology that begins to spoil the simple entertainment that is reading a book? I couldn't think of any why's - only more why not's.

1. Cost: After the initial purchase, I'll then want to begin to build my library, right? Wrong. eBooks cost as much as traditional books - usually - and yet you're not receiving any physical media for the cost. So that $7.99 mass-market paperback I just bought will still cost $7.99. Sure, there are some deals out there but they're usually for books you're not reading anyhow.
   
2. Title Availability: All those books you want to read, you're lucky if you can find them in eBook format. A lot of publishes haven't embraced eBooks and the ones that have on an average stick to mainstream titles only. That "new & noteworthy" title you read about online last week? You guessed it - not available.
   
3. Locked: Now that you've found a book you want to read - you do - and its great! Its so great you want your best friend to read it! But they can't. Unless they buy it. Because your eBook copy is only yours and can only be read on your device.
   
4. Design: Most eReaders are ugly. I don't want to spend $300+ to carry around something ugly. Sure I can buy covers and slip cases - but that goes back to cost.

Barnes & Noble's Nook is cheaper than the most up-to-date Amazon Kindle, works with ALL eBook formats including PDFs, allows limited lending of books and looks a hell of a lot better than the Sony eReader & Amazon's Kindle.

While the books aren't cheaper and the lending technology is EXTREMELY limited:

Dan Nosowitz of Gizmodo said,

Quote:

Lending seemed too good to be true: Sure, we knew about the 14-day lending period, but we wondered if it'd work like a library, where you can renew a book before its due date. No such luck. As it turns out, publishers have the right to allow or not allow lending (and book publishers are at least as uptight as record labels) in the first place, so who knows if you'll ever even get to try it. Besides that, you can lend each book one time only, forever. When you lend it, it's unavailable for you to read, which admittedly is what happens when you lend a physical book—but THESE AREN'T PHYSICAL BOOKS. For god's sake, let us enjoy the benefits of digital text!

All I can say is that I'm considering it. Seriously considering. What if? What if this is the device to get to the masses the same way the iPod made MP3s the new CDs. What if it expands and that nifty second screen becomes less like a touch screen and more like a tablet? What if this becomes that device that colleges start requiring so that physical text books don't have to be produced?

What if this is it?

Specifications Below:

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I use the Kindle on my iPod Touch and annoyed at the fact that books like Harry Potter or other big books weren't available.

But I think it should work by subscription. You pay a certain a mount a month and you can read any book in their library. If you think of it, they would make quite a bit more money from that than if it was one at a time. When I read a book, I take a while reading it. So I would be spending more money than I would if I bought the book right out. So even though I might pay $20 to read one book in my reading time, I would feel it's worth it because I would get the luxury of erasing a book that I thought would be good and download another that might be a jem.

And a portion of the funds would go towards the publishers.

I use the Kindle too, on my iPhone. I think the subscription service would be nice, but I admit I don't think I'd pay into that unless it was under $10 a month. I don't like the idea of paying for something I'm not able to keep. I used to do the subscription service through my Zune, but spending money every month and not being able to keep any of the songs really sucked.

I DO however wish you could return them just like you can with regular books - more than once I've returned a book because the first two chapters were awesome but I'd get halfway through the book and admit to myself that it sucked.