I saw a Nook

Having just bought the Kindle DX (and not even having held it in my hands - it was delivered while I was in Philly), I was naturally curious about the competition - setting aside the mythical Apple Thing which doesn't exist, I had to wonder about that new Barnes and Noble Nook: Would it be so cool I'd regret my purchase? Today, I got my hands on a Nook, and I have the answer:

The short answer is no.

The long answer is: If I wanted a slightly heavier Kindle with a cool color screen at the bottom AND I didn't already have a bunch of books purchased in an incompatible format, ok maybe.

The screen is odd, because you use it to select things, but the big screen above is what shows you the options: So the two screens work together, which sounds cool until you realize that the little color screen is fast like an iPhone, and the top screen is slow like the Kindle. The end result was that I was impatiently tapping on the color screen waiting for things to happen, while the upper screen was doing that slow Wipe-Flash-Draw thing that is acceptable when reading a book, but not so much as a computer display.

Plus I have around 80 books of "investment" in the Kindle, which is a closed system (like the Nook), so there's nothing there to sway me across. I'm just excited to see the BIG screen of the KindleDX. It will rock.