Reader News

If you buy books from B&N, but read on your PC, be sure to back up the programs you downloaded, as they are discontinuing Nook for PC. There will be "Nook for Web", but that sounds suspiciously like the Cloud Reader at Amazon (which is slow and clunky and only to be used for previews or emergencies, in my opinion). The iOs App remains (and, for now, so does Nook Study, but that is no doubt on borrowed time, if the Microsoft sale of the education unit at B&N goes thru). So far, the download button remains (and there are still many readers out there who download and transfer via USB, so I don't see it leaving soon), for thoae that back up their purchases offline.

In other Barnes & Noble news, you can pick up one of their NOOK HD Tablet or HD+ Tablets right now, at a substantial discount: $70 off the 6" HD ($129) and $120 off the 9" HD+ ($149)!. That's so low, that the only reason to stick with the 6" is that your purse won't fit the larger one inside. I have the larger of the two and it is a good screen and I use it to read in the B&N store. You are limited only to the Nook and Google Play stores for music, books and apps, but that covers most of what is out there (if you root the device, you can do more, but I suspect most people won't be doing that). It works well for web and email access, playing games, etc., although I mainly use it for reading and email access. The battery life seems to be better than the Kindle Fire (but nothing like the iPad, which has amazing battery life for a tablet).

If you've been hanging on to your Kindle DX for reading PDF's, then keep an eye out for the new 13.3" eInk slate device coming from Sony this year (hopefully to be released in the US and not just Japan). It's super thin, lightweight, has a 3 week battery life, comes with a stylus that not only is used for page controls, but lets you make notes on PDF's (and hopefully blank documents). The 4GB of storage on board can be expanded via the microSD slot and you can share your notes with others (miss a class, get another's notes and view them on your own copy of the textbook!).