Nook color vs. Kindls Fire

Looking at getting an e reader for the wife. She says she wants a Nook but the new Kindle Fire looks pretty good too. I want to stay around the $200 mark so both are right in there. Anyone have either or have an recommendations? Thanks.

I was not impressed at all with the Kindle fire. I found the touchscreen very laggy and unresponsive. Go to Amazon's site an read some of the 588 one star reviews. I would stay away.

Sorry, I haven't played around enough with the Nook to have an opinion.

Originally Posted by jaegermaster

Looking at getting an e reader for the wife. She says she wants a Nook but the new Kindle Fire looks pretty good too. I want to stay around the $200 mark so both are right in there. Anyone have either or have an recommendations? Thanks.

I picked up a FIre last week. Realy bummed about how locked down it is. In the process of rooting it right now. I see that there is a CM7 and ICS ROM port all ready for them. Both have issues with audio, so I will wait on installing those.

I find the screen great, have not seen any lags or issues with it. My Fire currently has the .2 update on it. maybe the 6.0 version was buggy.

I'm guessing that the Nook is a better device but the FIre will be the de facto one. I really like the size and form factor better than the iPad. I only wish it had physical buttons for volume and did not come locked out form the Android Market place. I'll have the market issus fixed in a few minutes. the volume buttons I guess I live with.

Well, the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet are good for consuming content that you've purchased from Amazon/Barnes and Noble, but outside of that they're pretty crippled and worthless IMO.

-no google apps- gmail, maps, voice, g+, docs, or android app store access.
-no GPS
-no DLNA or HDMI outputs
-no Bluetooth or cameras
-KF doesn't have expandable memory (via SD card). The expandability comes via cloud storage on Amazon's servers. Hope everywhere you go has wi-fi.
-NT has 16gb of onboard storage, but only 12 is available for use...and of that 12gb, 11 of it is reserved for purchases from the B&N store. That leaves you with 1gb of storage for your music/movies/pics. Thankfully, the NT has a microSD slot so this isn't a huge issue, but this shouldn't be an issue in the first place. It's stupid.

Depending on how you plan on using this device, these may or may not be issues.

I wound up picking up an Acer Iconia A100 instead, which was $250. I knew that I wanted the Google apps, marketplace and GPS, so the extra $50 was easy to justify. And the icing on the cake would be that it has a clean installation of Honeycomb with ICS coming in January. My only complaint is that the screen isn't as good as the KF and NT.

Originally Posted by scott_a

Well, the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet are good for consuming content that you've purchased from Amazon/Barnes and Noble, but outside of that they're pretty crippled and worthless IMO.

-no google apps- gmail, maps, voice, g+, docs, or android app store access.
-no GPS
-no DLNA or HDMI outputs
-no Bluetooth or cameras
-KF doesn't have expandable memory (via SD card). The expandability comes via cloud storage on Amazon's servers. Hope everywhere you go has wi-fi.
-NT has 16gb of onboard storage, but only 12 is available for use...and of that 12gb, 11 of it is reserved for purchases from the B&N store. That leaves you with 1gb of storage for your music/movies/pics. Thankfully, the NT has a microSD slot so this isn't a huge issue, but this shouldn't be an issue in the first place. It's stupid.

Depending on how you plan on using this device, these may or may not be issues.

I wound up picking up an Acer Iconia A100 instead, which was $250. I knew that I wanted the Google apps, marketplace and GPS, so the extra $50 was easy to justify. And the icing on the cake would be that it has a clean installation of Honeycomb with ICS coming in January. My only complaint is that the screen isn't as good as the KF and NT.

I have google apps and the android market running on my Kindle.
You can tether for GPS (I would never bother, but you can do it).
HDMI output... not a concern for me
No camera, no biggie. I could see this being nice for Skype though, just a small front facing camera for video use would be cool.
Bluetooth, I personally don't use it. The Fire does have BT in it, it's a part of the radio chip set in there. Does not mean it will ever be or could be functional.
Storage does blow. 16gb or more would be better. I've yet to hit 8gb on my phone, so I'm not that worried.

I figured my Fire will last me about a year, then get passed down to our daughter (she'll be 5 then). I really want to see what comes out with Win8 tablets. There are a lot of work applications and connectivity needs that Android OS fails on (for me). When there is a stable Ice Cream Sandwich ROM for the Fire that will fix a lot of my nits with the Fire. The ICS email client works really nice for Exchange, better than the current native one. And then there will be better proxy support. Since I have my Fire rooted, I have a proxy on there to get internet access at work.

My wife is wanting a fire, but I may just get the older version. She has an iPhone so I don't see the need for the other features.

Here's an article you might want to read before pulling the trigger on a KF:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/kindle...usability.html


I have to say, I'm really tired of companies coming out with products that they promote the crap out of for pre-sale and then the product does not up to the hype. I had actually pre-ordered the KF, but cancelled my order after I read that Amazon refused to let any reporters actually handle the KF at the press conference for the KF release. Why would they not let the people they are using to promote their product not even handle the unit first hand? After reading this article I think we know why......

Sean- yeah yeah, but you cheated and rooted your KF. I was mainly addressing the stock KF/NT units because it didn't sound like the OP was looking to nerd around on a tablet before handing it over to the wife.

And I'm not looking to keep this unit for all that long, either. This is mainly a trial run to see how much I like having a tablet, and if I end up using this thing a bunch then I'll upgrade to a quad core once the prices settle in a bit.

Originally Posted by scott_a

Sean- yeah yeah, but you cheated and rooted your KF. I was mainly addressing the stock KF/NT units because it didn't sound like the OP was looking to nerd around on a tablet before handing it over to the wife.

And I'm not looking to keep this unit for all that long, either. This is mainly a trial run to see how much I like having a tablet, and if I end up using this thing a bunch then I'll upgrade to a quad core once the prices settle in a bit.

well ya, rooting the KF was job one once I opened it

I see that some guys are running rooted Nook Colors in cars hooked up to OBD II via Bluetooth adapters.... hummmm where can I find a cheap Nook Color