About that cheap Kindle..

My Internet friend Jeanie brought some things about the $79 Kindle to my attention.  She's much more "geekie" than I, and I trust her advice.

"Before you change from the Nook to a Kindle, be aware of two things. Those cheaper Kindles have ads on them and you can't change your 'wallpaper' to any picture you want, and also with the Kindle you can't buy books from other stores. With the Nook you can buy from Barnes&Noble, but also from the Sony store and many smaller publishers. That's because the Nook uses epub (which is a more 'open' file type) The kindle won't do epubs without jumping thru a couple of hoops, and the Kindle books are their very own proprietary file format.

Also, go to stores and hold the e-reader you are thinking of getting. They all have slight differences in weight, etc."  

Nook lists the differences between the two on a chart HERE.  One important point that would steer me toward the Nook again is that I notice they have live telephone customer support, whereas Kindle does not.  Not long ago, I deleted my AOL email, which was associated with my Nook account; so the most recent book I bought with my Swagbucks wouldn't load onto the Nook.  I called support and a man guided me through the steps needed to fix my problem.  Telephone support is a big plus, even if the guy assisting me is in India.    

Jeanie is the person who originally steered me toward the Nook, and I have not been disappointed.  I don't think I'd like seeing ads on my reader, even if it saved me a few bucks.  Now, the part about changing the "wallpaper" on the screen doesn't affect me; I've never changed the wallpaper on my Nook, ever.  I bought it to read books, not to look at pictures.

And now you know the rest of the story.  I'd agree with Jeanie that people should window-shop and handle the various e-readers before they buy.  I'm in the boonies; I don't shop and didn't have any way of doing this, so I'm glad I had her advising me, especially since she always backs up her advice with facts (I sometimes don't understand the facts, but that's beside the point).

Thanks, Jeanie. 

E-readers are getting cheaper!

When I bought my basic Nook e-reader, it was cheaper than the Kindle, although I don't recall how much cheaper.  There seemed to be more Kindles around at the time, and that's what I would have purchased; then a friend gave me a heads-up:  With Nook, you could get books from the library.  Not so with Kindle.  
Since I don't have a lot of resources for book-buying, that did it for me.  I wanted to be able to read library books on my reader.  I have read a lot of library books since I bought the Nook.  
Now I see that the Kindle can finally be used to check out library books.  
Here's the real deal-breaker:  You can buy the basic Kindle for $79.  
The cheapest Nook is $139.  
If I were buying an e-reader today, guess which one I'd go for?  
It's nice to know that if something ever goes wrong with my Nook, I can buy a Kindle for under $100.