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Ha, ha, ha, mine’s thinner than yours: Amazon PR guy on the Kindle 2 vs. the Nook
November 22, 2009 | 9:25 am
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By David Rothman
“Kindle is 40 percent thinner, 10 percent lighter, with 2 times the battery life. It’s the best-selling, the most wished-for, and the most gifted product on Amazon across all product categories—not just electronics. Kindle manufacturing is humming, and the latest generation Kindle—just released in October—is in stock and available for immediate shipment today.” – Drew Herdener, Amazon PR guy, as quoted the New York Times quoted him on the Nook.
Of Kindles and pencils: Yes, that’s a Kindle 2 next to a pencil. I’m just curious if Amazon might be overdoing it. Would a somewhat thicker machine mean a more rugged E Ink display? I don’t know. What do you think? I would agree that thin-and-light could be good for elderly people and others who’d have trouble up holding a regular book.
Detail: Yes, word fans, I’m gonna keep spelling Nook with a cap N, just as the Times’ Brad Stone wisely did in reporting that the Nook was sold out for the holidays.
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Comments:
Amen to the capital N. I’m rebelling too. It’s bad enough having to type words like ePub and iRex and iPhone and eDGe.
I agree. This random capitalization, or lack of capitalization, is driving me nuts and I refuse to knuckle under to it.
Ignoring the evils of grammar, anyone who ever owned an HP iPAQ 1900 series PDA will have a very strong opinion on strength and stiffness in electronic gadgets with large panes of glass. I eventually switched to the thicker, stiffer Dell X51, even though I loved the 1900′s. I went through 3 of them. Even in a Rhinoskin, I couldn’t make them last; they were just to delicate.
Arguing that you have the thinnest ereader might just backfire.
Regards,
Jack Tingle
Thickness alone doesn’t tell the story on rigidity; the materials matter. Kindle is pretty heavy for its size because it has a fair amount of metal in it.
My BeBook is slightly thicker but way lighter because its mostly plastic. And then there is the matter of what shape the plastic has been molded into, internal ribs and stuff.
Rigidity is a component of what most folks would consider the “feel” of quality and in that respect kindle does well, just like the old Sony 505s.
They feel like solid slabs.
Nook? Will have to wait until I heft it. Which probably won’t happen til next february if ever.
Felix: Couldn’t agree with you more about the “alone.” But greater thickness might well make it easier to achieve ruggedness. Anyway, good point. The E Ink screen breakage issue, along with the general ruggedness question, begs for exploration by an appropriate lab.
Thanks,
David
Dear David,
I finally got off my tuches and wrote a letter to the customer service is king department of barnes and noble and asked them which is the proper way for newspapers and magazines and blogs and websites to spell “nook” in English — lowercase “n” which is how the logo does it, or uppercase “N” as virtually all newspapers and Brad Stone sensibly do it. In all of the known universe, I am the only holdout, still holding out for lowercase “nook”. But then again, I might be a “kook”. [SMILE.] I wrote to the PR dept at BN and when they reply to me I will send you their note, and then I will abide by whatever the BN PR dept says: to Nook or not to nook, that is the Question. I agree with you for now. Go with brad stone’s NYTimes copydesk stylebook standards section, so Nook it is. But once i get a Reply from the pr Dept at B&n, will fwd to You over There in iAmerica!
CC:
Dear B&N PR dept:
i am a reporter and editor in Taiwan. i need to find out the proper way to spell
nook. is it uppercase or lowercase. the logo is “nook”, but all USA
newspapers and the blogs and the NYTimes call it the Nook. It should be the ”nook”. The Taiwan
newspapers call it the ”nook”. so do I. I am an editor. What is the BN
response to this: should nook be CAPPED for first letter N or
lowercased, yes or no? please ASAP RSVp, danny bloom, in iTaiwan
i just heard back from ms brown at the b&n pr corp comm dept and she told me:
“It is all lowercase nook and just nook not the nook.”
So from her mouth to God’s ear? I don’t know the solution, David (and Paul and Brad Stone and NYTimes copydesk), but I wrote to the BN PR people and they said
“It is all lowercase nook and just nook not the nook.”
So do we ignore them or do we pay attention? I am on their side. Of course, I would be. I am always on the side of justice. But some might see “nook” as a marketing gimmick, and an inconvenient one at that. So i see both sides. Still, now armed with what Ms Brown at BN Central just told me, i say: it should be lowercased and no “the” in front of it.
i mean, language can be flexible, thank God, and we all love language here, and we do write iPhone and things like that, so why can’t we respect nook the same way? I vote lowercase. I will tell brad stone and jenny 8. lee and ashlee vance and john markoff and vindu goel and eric taub at the times. and e.e. cummings, too, but some people say his name was a ruse, too.
David,
Carolyn Brown at PR dept corp comm of BN told me just now:
I asked Barnes & Noble’s PR dept corporate communications dept Ms Carolyn Brown and she told me in no uncertain times that nook is lowercased, always, except when it is the first word in sentence, of course, and that it does not take a “the” before it.
She wrote to me when I asked whether USA newspapers and editors and bloggers should cap or lowercase the first letter of the word “nook” — and she replied:
“It is all lowercase nook and just nook….. not *the* nook.”
Now what? Awaiting your Orders, I Am, your humble iServant, dan E. bLOOm