Part II of the Kindle-Nook Playoff: The User Interface

The Kindle and Nook each take a different approach to the user interface (UI). The Kindle relies on hard buttons: navigation buttons along the sides, and a keyboard below the e-ink screen.  The Nook uses a touchscreen LCD for all navigation tasks.

I'll put it in a nutshell to save those who have busy schedules can skip some reading.  The Nook UI is prettier.  The Kindle UI is faster.

Ok, the busy folks have left the stadium.  Here's the more detailed play-by-play (I'm beating the sports metaphors to death.  Well, it's either that or watch the Olympic curling this afternoon).  

I'm talking about the Kindle 2, of course, which is faster than the first Kindle.  Not that it's terribly fast:  the refresh rate of e-ink screens is a bit slow under the best of conditions.  However, in my experience, page turns on the Kindle are approximately twice as fast as the Nook.  Selecting text to highlight is simply painful on the Nook, and much better on the Kindle.  If you're the type of person who likes to highlight their books, get the Kindle.

Highlighting text on the Nook is a fiddly exercise in using the touchscreen to move the pointer on the reading screen; waiting, waiting for the pointer to react; then repeating.  Finally, you'll get a chance to enter text on a touchscreen interface, and tap "submit."  The whole thing is an exercise in Buddhist patience.  The one part of this exercise where the Nook exceeds the Kindle is the keyboard; the Kindle keyboard is not made for speed typing.  You can take notes on the Kindle, but they will be more like tweets than paragraphs.  However, in every other respect, annotating on the Kindle is better.  It's faster, and your annotations are saved in a form that is quite a bit more useful.

On the Kindle, your bookmarks and notes are saved in a list in which the actual text of the bookmark or note (or a portion of it), appears on the screen; by moving the cursor and pressing the 5-way navigation button, you can go directly to the highlighted text, or see the whole note.  On the Nook, however, all you see is a list of page numbers that you have bookmarked.  You have to go to each page to see it; there is no context given.  Combined with the overall slowness of the communication between the LCD screen and the reading screen, this makes bookmarks and notes more difficult to use than beneficial to the reading experience.  In fact, in some books, there is only given the option to "view notes on this page," with no apparent way whatsoever to find all the notes one may have made -- other than paging slowly through the book.  In short, the Nook is best for people who just like to read straight through and do not annotate as they read.  Annotators and note-takers--get the Kindle.

Finally, a word needs to be said about consistency.   Consistent UIs are always easier to learn and to use.  The Kindle's UI is consistent throughout, if not fancy.  The Nook is oddly inconsistent.  Sometimes you back out of your menus on the LCD screen using a back arrow.  At other times, you tap an "X" to close a menu.  The result is, of course, that it is easy to forget where you are in the menus and accidentally close the book you are reading, which is annoying.

The communication between the LCD screen and the reading screen is quite slow.  Otherwise, the idea is good, and one finds oneself wishing that both Amazon and Barnes and Noble had a spy in each other's training camp.  The Kindle interface could use a little more pizzazz, and the Nook interface could use more speed and consistency, and handle annotating better.

100th Post! Kindle vs. Nook: Head to head PART I

2010 looks like it's going to be the year of the tablet, which also means that it will be a big year for e-books.  Sony, HP, and a new startup called Joojoo have all announced either new tablets or a desire to create a new tablet computer.  What that means for Kindle fans is that there will be competition in the e-book space.  The Apple iPad, first out of the gate this year, threatens to upset Amazon's pricing model, as many publishers will seek to set their own prices above the $9.99 price for new fiction that Amazon has tried to maintain, using Apple's upcoming electronic bookstore as bargaining leverage.  Of course, the iPad does not use e-ink, but rather a backlit LED screen.  We will have to wait and see how the reading experience compares to e-ink, and I am sure both types of screens will have their adherents.  Personally, I have found that for long reading sessions of 2 hours or more, e-ink is more comfortable on the eyes than either the iPhone or a regular computer screen.

For now,  the two premier e-readers are Amazon's Kindle and Barnes and Noble's Nook.  Both are backed by large bookstores and both seem to get the most press and the most public recognition.  (This sentence may seem very dated in a year!)

Part I:  The Page Itself

Arguably, one of the most important aspects of any e-reader is how well the printed page appears on the screen.  The Nook has one advantage here over the Kindle, namely, it has a small selection of different fonts as well as a selection of font sizes.  The Kindle is limited to one font, a serif font that is fine for most reading.  However, some of the lines can be rather thin and sometimes seem to fade a little in bright sunlight.  The nook has 2 - 3 fonts available, depending on the book, and for readers who like sans-serif fonts with thicker lines, there is a Helvetica font which I find easy on the eyes, as well as one or two serif fonts that look more like traditional book fonts.  On the other hand, the Nook has fewer selections for font size (there are 4-extra small, small, medium, and large).  The Kindle has 6 sizes, and the largest size -- and this is important for the visually challenged -- is about twice as large as the largest font on the Nook.  The gray background is a very slight shade lighter on the Nook, but, as the difference is all but impossible to discern, it makes no discernible difference to the reading experience, in my opinion.

This element is a wash.  The selection of fonts in the Nook is balanced by the greater choice in font sizes in the Kindle.  The picture to the left shows both devices set on their largest font size, with the Nook set on its "Helvetica-Neue" font.

I've been watching the Olympics, and so I'm very much in a winner-loser mode.  Score so far for the first heat:  Tied. 

Stay tuned for the second heat:  The user interface (UI).

Some pictures from the Snowmageddon--Around Washington, DC

Shiny and New: Apple's iPad, Obama's State of the Union

Yesterday, January 27th was a rather busy day, especially for a politcally aware gadget fanatic:  Apple announced it's heretofor mysterious new tablet device, and President Obama delivered his State of the Union address.  So, of course, one wonders:  other than occuring on the same day, what do these two events have in common?

The short answer is that both are going to be judged more by their futures than their current appearance.  The iPad is shiny and sleek, like all Apple products, but also limited.  It has few applications, apparently won't work on websites that use Flash (hulu.com, for one), and limited connectivity.  It is, essentially, a beautiful frame waiting to be filled by developers.  If it progresses like the iPhone and finds itself host to 100,000 applications for various purposes, it will be a wild success.

In the same way, Obama has a plan for increasing employment and decreasing the pain of the current hard times we are in.  Incentives and tax breaks, paybacks from banks that were assisted with taxpayer money, ways to reduce the costs of education.  All wonderful, shiny and new ideas, waiting to be fulfilled or not by the actions that Congress (the "developer community" for our laws, as it were) takes.  If Obama can implement effective policies and pull the country and its people out of its economic slump, his presidency will also be a wild success.

Here's to a shiny new future, with all the apps and productive employment we need to buy them.

U is for Undertow: Doggedly determined

In this, the 21st installment of the alphabetically organized case histories of Kinsey Milhone, much depends on a dog.  The plot is kicked off when a young man, Michael Sutton, claims to have a memory that may indicate the burial place of a young girl who had disappeared in 1967, about 20 years before the time of the novel, which takes place in 1988.  Later, there will prove to be significant questions about his reliability, one of the things (and there are more than one) that will throw Kinsey off the scent.

The novel shifts back and forth between the current time and the events of the 60s that led to the tragedy that is the core of the novel.  There are some vivid characters, including 60s hippies and a vengeful sister.  Generally, the "U" of Grafton's alphabetical series is an enjoyable read.  My only concern about the plot is that at one point, the mystery of what Michael Sutton saw seems to have been (rather innocuously) resolved, and it is only Kinsey's refusal to let go that moves the plot to the next point.  Of course, this tenaciousness is not out of character; readers of the series know that Kinsey Milhone is nothing if not methodical and tenacious.  The best and most interesting thing about the book, in addition to some of the more colorful characters, is the inclusion of history that affects the outcome of the mystery.  Despite my one question about the plot, I found U is for Undertow to be an interesting mystery and well worth reading.  It is obviously a must-read for anyone keeping up with Sue Grafton's remarkable achievement of writing one novel for each letter of the alphabet.

Happy Holidays!

Hanukkah is over, Christmas is today, and New Year's is coming...so let this be an all-inclusive wish for a great 2010.

My next review is going to be Sue Grafton's U is for Undertow, coming soon!

In the meantime:  a very hopeful restauranteur's sign, during the big snow of December, '09.

Looking for a good read?

Then check out the latest edition of the Book Review Blog Carnival at the link at the end of this post.

And I'm not saying this because a couple of my reviews are mentioned.  Really.  I'm saying it because there are informative reviews by bloggers who love books--you might find your next great read at this link!

http://residentreader.blogspot.com/2009/12/book-review-blog-carnival-33rd-edition.html

My essay on the Kindle 2 at E-Reader Feeder

http://www.e-readerfeeder.com/amazon-kindle-2-reviews.html