So I opened up one of my emails this morning and read about the Nook, Barnes & Noble’s answer to Amazon’s Kindle reading device.  Priced at $259 (the same as the U.S.-only Amazon Kindle), it has gone in a few different directions than Amazon’s devices.

First of all, the thoughts that follow are not a review, but rather outline my thinking based on what I have read about the Nook.  I have not actually seen one in person yet, so all of my analysis is based upon information posted on the official B&N site.  Furthermore, I am a Kindle DX owner, so I am evaluating the Nook based on my experience with the Kindle.

Let’s get the similarities out of the way first.

• The both employ the exact same 6″ e-ink display featuring 16 levels of grayscale
• You can order books and have them delivered over a cellphone network at no additional charge
• Both work only in the U.S. (although for $20 more, Amazon has a model that works worldwide)
• They are essentially the same size, shape, and weight
• They both employ proprietary DRM  to protect books you purchase

Obviously, Barnes and Noble has an uphill battle to dethrone the Amazon Kindle.  While there are other e-reader devices out there (notably from Sony and Foxit), for all intents and purposes, the Nook is the first real challenger to the features and functionality offered by the Kindle.  To essentially beat Amazon at its own game, B&N had to either sell their reader for less than Amazon’s or offer features and functions that Amazon did not have.  Given the fact that we know the manufacturing costs are at least half if not more of the final product for an e-reader and B&N have a fair amount of R&D expense to recapture, choosing a price that is substantially enough below the cost of the Kindle that it would entice people was probably not an option.

So, B&N went the route of adding features in hopes of differentiating themselves enough from the Kindle.  So, let’s look and see what features they have:

• Color Display along the bottom that shows the covers of the books you have – this is how you choose which book/periodical to read
• Touch Screen – this appears to apply to the small color screen only
• Support for 802.11 wireless in addition to cellular network support (wireless only works at B&N stores at launch)
• Expansion slot for MicroSD cards
• Direct support for PDF files (The Kindle 2’s big brother, the Kindle DX offers this)
• The ability to loan out books for up to 14 days
• e-Readers for Apple iPhone, Blackberry, PC, and Mac
• Over a million titles
• 500,000 are free titles

B&N also offers some additional features that are tied to its stores.  Supposedly, you will be able to sit in a B&N store with your Nook and read books for free that will be streamed over B&N’s wireless network.

Now, while at first glance, these features seem attractive, let’s take a closer look at them.

Color Display – Well, since 99% of your time with an e-Reader is going to be reading the actual books, the color display is not much more than eye candy.  It adds weight to the unit (the Nook is 1 oz heavier than the Kindle 2) and sucks battery.

Touch Screen – Since you don’t have a keyboard, you need a touch screen.  It will be interesting to see how the Nook implements book searching on the B&N website.  The Kindle uses the full keyboard on the device which makes searches easy.  Not sure how the B&N device will do it.  If, as it sounds, only the color screen is touch enabled, it’s too small for an onscreen keyboard.

802.11 support – Um?  Okay.  At launch it only works with wireless networks in the B&N store, so unless you are in the book store, the 802.11 radio doesn’t do much for you except suck additional battery life.  Even if they enable it to work elsewhere, how much value will it bring?  Unlike the Kindle, the Nook does not support web surfing, so besides being able to deliver books (which the cellular network is certainly capable of doing), I don’t see much use.

Expansion Slot for MicroSD cards – Nice, but the base memory will hold 1,500 books.  Considering the fact that you have to navigate by the pictures on the touch sensitive screen, I’m not really sure if I want access to more that 1,500 books at a time.  I generally only keep the books I’m actively reading or referencing on my Kindle and it never gets near 1,500.

Loaning out a book – Okay, now this is a nice feature and one that Amazon should have a good look at.  On the flip side, publishers will choose whether or not they will allow a book to be loaned out and for how long.  My guess is that the end result of this will be not that many popular books will allow loaning.

Wide Range of e-Readers – Again another nice plus that Amazon should look at.  While Amazon does have an iPhone app that supports the Kindle format, why not a PC, Mac, and even a Blackberry one?  There would definitely be times when I would not mind being able to read one of my Kindle books on my PC or Blackberry

Over 1,000,000 titles – certainly more than Amazon’s claimed 350,000 titles.  Yet, here’s the thing – they also say that 500,000 are free, so does that really mean that there are only 500,000 titles?  If so, that narrows the gap with the Kindle quite a bit.

As for the Kindle, it still has some features that the Nook lacks;

• Internet Browsing
• Wikipedia access
• Blog subscriptions
• worldwide access (for $20 more than the base Kindle)
• The ability to import Microsoft Word files

The first two are related.  B&N made a conscious decision claiming that they did not include Web Browsing by design because it is subpar on an e-Reader.  Maybe, but it was probably also a cost concession.  Any wireless access costs money and by eliminating the possibility that people might do some web browsing on the Nook, they probably negotiated a better deal with AT&T.  For me, while it is certainly not my primary browser, I have found it convenient from time to time to be able to check my email or pull up a weather map on the Kindle.  Believe it or not, I actually prefer the large monochrome screen of the Kindle for these tasks over the smaller color one on my Blackberry

Blog subscriptions are a nice touch, but certainly not a deal maker or breaker

Worldwide access is nice if you need it, but irrelevant if you don’t

Importing Word files is a nice feature and I have used it from time to time myself.  One note here is that from the B&N comparison list, you might assume that it costs money to convert your Word docs to Kindle format.  In fact, you are only charged if you have the converted file sent to your Kindle wirelessly.  You have the option of having the file converted and emailed to you for free and then you simply download it to the Kindle via USB.

All in all, I’m glad that B&N has entered the E-reader game.  I hope they are reasonably successful.  They have some nice touches that Amazon will have to figure out how to respond to if they want to stay ahead.  On the flip side, if I had to do it all over again, I think I would still go with the Kindle, simply because I find more value in its collection of features.  I also like my larger screen Kindle DX which is something that B&N does not have an answer for.

The one major downside is that we have a new Digital Rights Management (DRM) ecosystem.  In this day and age, I would like to see us moving away from DRM entirely, not creating new ones.  If there is an E-book reader war and someone loses, the people who bought into that system will be the ultimate losers as their material will stay forever locked to the dead platform and not be portable someplace else.