For just a few golden days, however, I thought maybe my favorite bookstore was finally going to make a device I currently crave.  Sure, with just the sparse information in that post, the supposed e-reading device could have turned out the worst of the bunch when it finally came about, but I was expecting a lot out of it.  After all, Borders has some great technological touches, such as the coupon text codes (before the service was “temporarily suspended”), e-mailed coupons (which B&N has, too), a way to track loyalty points and apply them to purchases in which people forgot their cards (which I think I saw at Best Buy or a similar store)…on second thought, the technological touches aren’t so great after all, but I still expected a lot out of it just for being my favorite bookstore.

Then nook came along, looking cute, shunning the need for connection software, and equipped with a user-replaceable battery.  My “I kind of sort of want an e-reader” attitude turned into an “omg nook is awesome and someday I will have it” attitude.  That “someday” was supposed to translate into “whenever nook 2 comes out and original nook gets a price drop”, but that’s now changed to “whenever a NYC B&N has it in stock”.

I still can’t think of a way that it enhances my hobbies enough to be worth $260, but just the fact that it exists prompts me to think about the little ways an e-reader can help, such as not worrying about overdue library books, being able to comfortably read those horribly thick learning books on the subway, and being able to search for a specific word or phrase rather than physically scanning the book with my own eyes and wasting precious reading time.  Yes, I thought about all those things two weeks ago, too, but every time I’ve thought of those little perks since then, my nook desire heightens considerably.  Please plateau so that I can be normal again.

Amateurishly analyzing myself again, this desire is probably also due to the fact that I can’t have one and people always want what they can’t have.  It’s not being sold in stores yet, there is no announcement about exactly when it will be sold in stores, and the expected ship date for any nooks ordered today is the first of February.

Well, since I can’t have a nook just yet, the only other way I can squelch this desire is to get the next best thing, which for now is Kindle 2.  In some ways it is better:  it has a browser, it reads Mobipocket, and DMP has some BL out in Kindle format.  In some ways, it is the same:  no connection software needed, natively reads about the same amount of file types, although not the same file types.  In some ways, it is worse:  battery is not user-replaceable (well, it can be, with some work) and needs a bit of adjusting in order to make it read library books.

Unless I see a Kindle 2 for $100, though, I’m still waiting for nook.  I love shopping at Amazon because they are cheaper than B&N without having to pay $25 a year for membership, but the company is rather ebil, not allowing Mobipocket PID’s to be used on a Kindle when they own Mobipocket, forcing people to only buy content provided by Amazon or content that is already DRM-free and could have been side loaded by any user in the first place.  At least with a nook, I can read library books without worrying that some firmware update will break that feature.  I’m a little worried that something similar to what is hopefully a glitch on Sony readers will happen, though.  Hopefully this will either be a non-issue with nook or the fact that I don’t use Overdrive and just download directly from NYPL makes it a non-issue.

Not that I think B&N is totally non-ebil; I’m actually a little jealous because there are so many of them that they overpower the presence of Borders, despite Borders’s free membership program with frequent 30% off coupons and Borders Bucks.  I don’t remember B&N ever sending me a coupon for more than 25% off when I was a member nor do I recall anything akin to the Borders Bucks program.

So in short, I’m whining because:  I can’t get a nook before February, B&N is more popular than Borders, and Amazon is ebil for not letting their Kindle read DRMed Mobipocket books, despite it actually being feasible since someone made a python script that will let it do so.

The ballpark release date for the first wave of Nook is tomorrow/today, which raises my desire for this non-ebil device significantly.  It connects via USB as mass storage!  Okay, so I’m probably the only one that really sees this as an exciting feature, but after finding a lot of good reading apps for eBiLpod and then having to pass on them because they required wi-fi to upload the files I wanted to read to somewhere else first and then to eBiLpod, it’s thrilling to think of being able to just get my files from my computer to my device.  Wi-fi should be a supplemental feature, not a required one.

Going totally off the topic of Nook for a moment, the lack of simple features, such as USB transfer of files for ebil apps and being able to save and view offline webpages on eBiLdevice is one of the newer reasons I hate Apple.

Back to Nook, I can’t justify spending $260 since it’s not something I need nor does it enhance my hobbies.  Yes, reading is a hobby of mine, but unless I borrow 10+ books every time I go to the library (I don’t…anymore), it’s not that big of an improvement.  If all the major publishers of BL started releasing their graphic novels as e-books (proprietary Kindle format doesn’t count, DMP), then I might give up the money because I’ve run out of shelf space several times and had to reorganize, but for now I’ll wait for the price to go down to something more fitting of a person who mostly just borrows all her reading material from the library and has bought maybe two non-graphic novels in the past five years.

Nook alternatives I’ve considered:

eBookwise 1150–Rejected because I suspect it doesn’t look as paper-like as the newer e-readers.

Aluratek Libre–Same as above, except replace “newer” with “more expensive”.