Hi, poptart, You can get Kindle 3G or Wi-Fi or Nook e-Ink (3G or Wi-Fi) or Nook Color Android tablet (Wi-Fi). 3G means the internet connection is included for free for the life of the device thus you can download a new book even when you're walking on the street. Wi-Fi means that you need to have access to wireless hotspot - examples would be any Barnes & Noble store that provides free Wi-Fi to Nook's or any Starbucks or any McDonalds or airport or any other place that provides free Wi-Fi service or your home’s wireless router - to download eBooks. Again, it's only needed to download eBooks or browse the Internet. Once you downloaded the eBooks to your device, you don't need Internet connection to read them. There's over a million of free public ebooks as well as over a million of ebooks that you need to pay for available through Barnes & Noble eBook store. Prices are generally much lower than for physical books.
Having that out of the way, you should then decide which screen you want: e-Ink or LCD. It depends on what you're reading. If just black & white novels then the better one would be Kindle or e-Ink Nook from Barnes & Noble. If you read electronic magazines or college text books with a lot of color graphs and charts or children’s' books with a lot of pictures then the better would be Nook Color LCD from Barnes & Noble. Then, you should understand the limitations of e-Ink eReaders - they are limited to be black & white for now they "blink" at each ebook’s page turn, they're not too good for web browsing, they need external light source for reading when dark, and they cannot handle videos.
Whichever device you choose, here's the advantages of the Nook’s (both e-Ink black & white and Nook Color) over Kindle:
- Any Barnes & Noble store provides free Wi-Fi to Nook's
- Nook allows to lend Nook books for two weeks to friends and family or share with your other devices that run B&N app (PC, MAC, Android phones, Apple iPhone, iPod and iPad, etc.)When you walk in with the Nook to B&N store, you’re allowed to read any available eBook for free while in the store via free provided in the store Wi-Fi. With Nook, while in BN store you get exclusive articles from top authors, and great offers including cafe treats and unique deals.
- Nook (unlike Kindle) can be used for library ebooks and for renting text-ebooks.
Nook Color is worth mentioning separately as this is a hybrid Android eReader/tablet device, something between Kindle and iPad. Even though Nook Color has LCD touchscreen, it's a new generation screen which is anti-glare coated and is better performing in sunlight and produces less glare all of which are dooming reading on iPad. Also, the screen is amazing and readable/viewable at wide angles.
Overall, Nook Color is more than e-Reader as you can also watch video and use Android applications on it. It's a hybrid device, much more than just an e-Reader but not a full tablet as it doesn't have a camera. If all you want is to read novels, the original e-Ink Nook might be better for you. If you want something more from your device (color graphs and charts of college text books, childrens books, photos and videos, web sites in full color) at half of the price of iPad or Galaxy tab, then Nook Color is your best bet.
Nook Color has several apps that already come with the device (Pandora Internet radio, QuickOffice, etc.) Also, Barnes & Noble recently released Nook SDK and Nook Developer platform that will allow most of the existing 100,000 Android apps be ported to it. Also, you can use the Social Settings screen to link your NOOK Color to your Facebook account and your Twitter account. You can also import all your contacts from your Google Gmail account. Once you have linked to Facebook and Twitter and set up email contacts, you can lend and borrow books, recommend books, and share favorite quotes with your friends.