By Brad Chacos on November 21, 2011 in
When it comes to e-book readers, two names are usually part of any discussion: the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes & Noble Nook. Both eReader lines have recently seen significant improvements -- and significant price cuts. It's not a huge surprise, then, that good eReader "deals" are few and far between this Black Friday. To be sure, there are lots of "offers" in the circulars, but little actual discounting. Does that mean that the eReader bargain hunter is shut out this Black Friday? Of course not! Let's dig in to find the best -- and the worst -- of this year's ebook reader deals.
Best sellers
Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch: Best Buy will be offering the Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch for $79.99, which is $20 off of its normal sticker price. Worth it? Yes, even though the discount is not that steep. The Nook Simple Touch (formerly the Nook Touch) draws terrific reviews, and this one day price drop makes it the same price as the Amazon Kindle with Special Offers -- but the Nook Simple Touch doesn't include advertisements and has a responsive touchscreen interface that reviewers say is an improvement over the button-based page flipping of the Kindle. If you are shopping for an ebook reader on Black Friday, this is a good option, though we like the next deal a little better.
Amazon Kindle Keyboard 3G: The Amazon Kindle Keyboard 3G (with Special Offers) will be available from Target for $85 on Black Friday. At that price, it's a steal: the normal price is $140. For just $5 more, the Kindle Keyboard 3G offers a host of upgrades over the base Kindle (with Special Offers), which sells for $80. Those include audio capabilities for text-to-speech and audio e-books, a physical QWERTY keyboard, and the ability to download e-books anywhere for free by tapping into AT&T's 3G cellular network -- eliminating the need to be connected to a Wi-Fi network. Good deal.
The remainder table
Pandigital Novel: Long known for its digital photo frames, Pandigital also offers the Pandigital Novel, an e-reader/tablet hybrid that first hit store shelves in 2010 with a sticker price of $200. Now, it's regularly priced at just $120, and it'll be available for $69.99 at Best Buy on Black Friday, BFads.net reports. Even at that price, however, we recommend skipping it. The Pandigital Novel was thoroughly panned by critics when it launched for being glitchy, laggy and dim. "Today, there is no reason for this level of frustration," Jamie Lendino wrote at PCMag.com -- and that was over a year ago. If you are shopping for an ebook reader at Best Buy, you'd be better served by spending $10 more going for the deal on the Barnes & Noble Simple Touch mentioned above, or springing for the Kindle (with Special Offers) at its everyday price.
E-book readers aren't the only electronic devices being heavily promoted on Black Friday: be sure to keep checking the Productopia blog for more hot -- and not-so-hot -- Turkey Day technology deals as we get closer to the big day.