I was one of the fortunate few who snatched up a first Gen e-Reader from Sony. At the time, Amazon and Sony were the only two companies that had an e-Reader on the market, and the Sony seemed a better buy. I really loved my e-Reader and used it all the time. It seemed quite sturdy and never let me down. Then, during an unfortunate trip to Europe, the e-Reader bit the dust. I sent it in for repair, and they exchanged it for a new one. I was back in business in about a week. It was a great feeling. During that week, however, I started looking at new e-Readers just in case the repair would have been too expensive or denied somehow.

Imagine my surprise when I found out how much this little ‘niche’ segment had grown. I knew that Amazon had gained some market share with the Kindle (various versions) and that Sony had a big market, but I was shocked to see Barnes and Noble’s new entrant to the field. As luck would have it, just a few days from the untimely demise of my Sony e-Reader, I get an email from Barnes and Noble announcing the Nook. Hailed as “The World’s Most Advanced eBook Reader,” I had to check it out. What really caught my eye initially was the cost. It is only $259 brand new. I won’t even get into how much the Sony cost when I bought it. Suffice it to say that $259 is pocket change compared to that. It looks quite nice as well, and it has something the other two competitors don’t: Full Color.

Now, for some, color doesn’t matter. If all you are reading is novels, black and white is fine. If you want to read magazines or newspapers with photos, however, color makes a huge difference. Built in 3G, like the Kindle, allows book, magazine and newspaper downloads to take place just about anywhere. Overall, eBooks cost less than their print counterparts. Best of all, however, is the portability factor of the e-Reader. About the height and width of a standard paper back novel, but only about a quarter inch thick, the e-Reader can fit in places a common book can not. For those that are fans of hot-off-the-press novels, having to buy a larger hard back novel is often a drag. Now you don’t have to.

So you can easily see that an e-Reader is an amazing value if you actually use it. The features are pretty similar across the board with several key differences between them. Which one fits you best is a decision that only you can make. So what is the relative cost difference? Well, as I said before, the new Nook sells for $259. A quick glance over at Amazon shows the new Kindle (not the DX) at the same $259. The Sony site shows two models, one at $199 and the other at $299. So the price difference is very small. I do really like the Nook and Kindle, but I’m pretty used to the Sony. I like the 3G features of the Kindle and Nook, but I want to do some more research on the Nook and see if it is easy to port my huge collection of PDFs over. If the Nook can make it easy to manage both my old library and any new titles that I download, it’s a definite winner. I guess I’ll just have to wait until the Nook actually releases to get my hands on it.

Of course, if Barnes and Noble is reading this, an evaluation unit would greatly aid me in my quest. :)