When Customer service isn't.

Spent part of my Sunday (the part during the second half of the Texans game thankfully) store hopping up in the Woodlands. Popped into Barnes & Noble to have a look at their Nook reader. I'm in the market for either that or a Kindle from Amazon, haven't decided which one yet.

One tablet that I'm definitely not interested in is a Nook "color". Not only is it $100 more than the regular Nook reader, ($249 vs. $149) but it doesn't have the e-ink technology which makes reading doable on a standard black & white reader. And that's primarily what I want this for: To read e-books. Despite my many attempts to convey this to the sales clerk at the kiosk, my appraisal of the black & white Nook was continually interrupted by a sales pitch for the Nook Color.

I now know that the Nook Color can stream movies (not what I'm looking for), it can connect to the NY Times (for a fee, as can the Nook B&W) or a host of other magazines and dailies, and it has the memory to download more books than I'll probably read in my lifetime. It's also not available right now. It's recommended that you reserve one on the release day just in case you MIGHT think you want one. Whether or not you actually buy one, just reserve one, you know, just in case.

Get the picture? (I'm sure we'll all be shocked, SHOCKED! when B&N announces supply shortages of the Nook Color right before Christmas won't we?)

I came in to look at a e-reader in which I was interested, only to be told by the staff supposedly selling said reader that it wasn't that great, they had a better (more expensive) option that I couldn't even GET right then, having instead to wait until December something-or-other, and that didn't really even do what I wanted it to do.


All things being equal I'm now leaning toward the Kindle. Which I will purchase on-line from the comfort of my own home. Oh yeah, it's $10 cheaper than the Nook B&W as well....Probably because Amazon isn't paying someone to talk me out of buying what I came in for in the first place.