Kindle Fire stumbles during holiday season, Nook takes off

For Christmas this year, my wife decided to get me an e-reader. And in doing so, we started doing our research. We were heavilly influenced by both strong word of mouth from friends and family who loved their black and white e-ink Kindles AND the fact that the Kindle appeared not once, but twice on the BSR holiday gift guide. But yesterday we placed an order for a Nook Tablet from Barnes and Noble- and this is the story of how I went from skeptic to evangelist.

Amazon’s Kindle is nearly synonymous with the concept of e-readers: Kindle is to e-readers what kleenex are to disposable tissue, ziploc to resealable plastic bags, and post-its to brightly colored lightly adhesive paper.  The Barnes & Noble Nook occupied a separate, second-tier. . .er, nook. . .niche. . .but had come out last year in both black and white and color forms. Then B&N dropped the price on their nook and nook color and launched an updated “Nook Tablet”, with an emphasis on being not just an e-reader but also an iPad’s little cousin.  So when Amazon announced a full-color reader, expectations were reasonably set quite high. Today’s New York Times tells a different story— one of customer dissatisfaction, numerous returns/complaints, and speculation as to how much money Amazon may be losing on each Kindle Fire they sell.

A few of their many complaints: there is no external volume control. The off switch is easy to hit by accident. Web pages take a long time to load. There is no privacy on the device; a spouse or child who picks it up will instantly know everything you have been doing. The touch screen is frequently hesitant and sometimes downright balky.

All the individual grievances — recorded on Amazon’s own Web site — received a measure of confirmation last week when Jakob Nielsen, a usability expert, denounced the Fire, saying it offered “a disappointingly poor” experience. For users whose fingers are not as slender as toothpicks, he warned, the screen could be particularly frustrating to manipulate.

“I feel the Fire is going to be a failure,” Mr. Nielsen, of the Nielsen Norman Group, a Silicon Valley consulting firm, said in an interview. “I can’t recommend buying it.”

All this would be enough to send some products directly to the graveyard where the Apple Newton, the Edsel, New Coke and McDonald’s Arch Deluxe languish. But as a range of retailers and tech firms could tell you, it would be foolish to underestimate Amazon.

Amazon sees the Kindle line of devices as critical for its future as a virtual store, and is willing to lose money on the sale of each one for the sake of market share. Once dominance is achieved, it plans to make money on the movies, books and music that users download directly from Amazon.

First, however, it needs to make the devices ubiquitous. Promoting them every day to its tens of millions of customers at the cheapest possible price will surely help. If Apple brought the notion of the tablet into the mainstream, Amazon is making it affordable.

The retailer says the Kindle Fire is the most successful product it has ever introduced, a measure of enthusiasm that reveals nothing; it has not specified how many Fires it has sold, nor how many Kindles it has ever sold. It also says it is building even more Fires to meet the strong demand. But, at the same time, it acknowledges that it is working on improvements.

As if that weren’t enough, do what I did:  Google “Kindle Fire vs Nook Tablet” and read the results. Every review I read gave the advantage to the Nook, citing its better interface, faster chipset and performance, brighter, more readable screen, and Amazon’s more rigid constraints on their device. Specifically, the Kindle does not have an SD card slot and people were complaining about its scant storage space. The Nook has both more space and an expansion slot to carry more of your media.

Amazon and B&N seemed to almost have a different ethic about what they anticipated their customers would want. Amazon’s design was rigid, and offered a poor experience navigating most web content, but an excellent interface for downloading and streaming content from Amazon itself. Amazon customers will be able to store their purchases on Amazon’s cloud storage space and stream Amazon Prime content, which is quickly rivaling Netflix streaming and Hulu Plus for content. So, if you’ve invested big in Amazon content– Kindle is for you.

B&N, on the other hand, basically was offering a stripped-down tablet PC with an emphasis on downloading books from their store. It comes natively ready to play Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, and dozens of other popular services. Being built on an only slightly modified Android OS, unfortunately they don’t go far enough in opening themselves to all the apps available on the Google Marketplace. But, even with last year’s Nook Color, a subset of customers popped up who “rooted” and customized their system, allowing them to run apps not approved through the pipeline. Compare that to Amazon, who in their first OS upgrade a few weeks ago actively removed the ability of a customer to root or customize the Fire.

And then there’s the issue of comics. In my opinion, the only reason to get a color e-reader over a black and white version is to read comics. And you may remember a few months ago when DC Comics announced an exclusive deal with Amazon– a sweet set of awesome graphic novels available at launch for Kindle Fire– Barnes and Noble was. . . not pleased and responded by pulling those specific DC comics off their store shelves. But, since the best revenge is living well, Barnes and Noble announced their own exclusive deal with Marvel.

Furthermore, both readers support the Comixology app. So, if you’ve already invested heavily in digital comics, especially from Dark Horse, IDW, and others who run on Comixology, you’re in luck either way. To compare even further, Endgadget has a comparison of both readers’ aptitudes with digital comics.

For me, it came down to this: I am much more of a Marvel than a DC. And the prospect of being able to fully enjoy Marvel’s Unlimited Digital offerings are far more important to me than being able to buy another copy of Watchmen or Dark Knight Strikes Back. And since Marvel is offering free digital versions with some of their titles same day, while. . . well, I don’t read a single one of the DC monthly titles, my choice was somewhat clear.

Finally, the thing that pushed me over the edge was Jane Lynch. Yes, while watching Glee on Hulu Plus over my Roku Box, the ad that came up was this:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw9dXXMTDxs

Yes, in a fit of beautiful serendipitous marketing targeted specifically to my tastes by the magic of Hulu/Roku, Barnes and Noble cut through the barrage of ads I see every day, to lead my wife to ask, “Isn’t that what you really want?” And while I had hemmed and hawed about how “anything you get me will be great” and my concern about the more expensive price tag on the Nook Tablet, I had to admit. . . yes, that was what I really wanted.

So, when I received an email from BN.com yesterday morning telling me if I ordered my Nook Tablet using a Mastercard they’d give me a $25 gift card as part of their Green Monday promotion, we went ahead and ordered it. And I could not be more excited– and glad I dodged the Kindle Fire bullet. To sum up, here’s what won me over:

Better performance, better screen, open(ish) operating system, better handling of Marvel comics, better interface for the applications I already use like Netflix and Hulu, and Jane Lynch.

UPDATE:
Appears I’m not the only one buying a Nook Tablet. Got this email today from BN.com:

America has fallen in love with NOOK TabletTM.

Demand has exceeded all expectations, and unfortunately, we’re unable to ship your NOOKTM in the time frame we stated in our previous email. We expect to ship your order by 12-20-2011. Once your NOOKTM arrives, you’ll discover a whole new way to enjoy reading with your favorite books, newspapers, and magazines just a touch away.

C’est la vie. I still think I made the right choice.