<p>Hi, so this may be a little off topic for this thread, but I'm not sure.
Anyway, my aunt offered to buy me a Nook or Kindle as my graduation present, and I know how expensive college textbooks can be. Which electronic reader is the better option for downloading textbooks specific to northeastern's classes? Which will save me the most money? Or is it better to not get either and just buy the textbooks myself? Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>If you’re reading books that are largely text, a Kindle or Nook can be nice to have. However, for most textbooks, diagrams probably aren’t going to translate very well, and for some classes, e-textbooks may not even be available. I do have a Kindle, and have used it for classes, but have only been able to find e-books when the book in question really isn’t a textbook (I used it for the book all incoming Freshman are required to read, an autobiography for the required Honors course, and for a supplemental book for an Anthropology course). </p>
<p>If you do a lot of reading for pleasure, a Kindle(I recommend it over the Nook) may be a worthwhile purchase, but chances are it will be difficult, if not impossible, to use it to handle the majority of your text book related needs.</p>
<p>On another note, if a textbook is available in e-book form, (and sometimes when it is not), you can usually view the book on a computer, though this may not be as comfortable as using an e-reader. If you’re still interested in an e-reader, see if you can wait to purchase an e-reader until you know how many of your textbooks will be available as e-books, and until you do get the e-reader, you can buy them and view them on a computer in the meantime.</p>
<p>And if you don’t read for pleasure, ask her for a check to pay for your textbooks. That would always help.</p>
<p>I personally have a Nook, but the Kindle DX has a 9.7 inch screen. I believe it’s specifically for textbooks and larger print things like that. So if anything I would look into this because the small screen on a traditional Kindle or Nook would be pretty annoying to read an entire textbook. Another thing is the Nook Color has, well, a color screen versus traditionally e-ink readers so if you do find that BN carried the textbooks you’ll need a color device may be more sufficient.</p>
<p>If you go to their respective sites you’ll see that for the most part, Kindle & Nook don’t do textbooks. However, Barnes & Noble does have a free downloadable program for the PC and Mac called (confusingly) Nook Study, with which you can download textbooks to read, highlight, take notes and do lots of other things,</p>
<p>The Kindle is an awesome piece of hardware. To be my first choice for reading novels or books but not for textbooks. Not that it’s bad for textbooks which are restricted to use the Kindle format. On the other hand if you use an iPad or Android tablet you can install a Kindle reader, a Nook reader, a Kno reader, Coursesmart reader, etc. the availability of digital textbooks is limited and you will need the choice of different formats to increase the chances of finding the textbooks you need.
There is a discussion on E textbook availability - [What</a> is the availabilty of eTextbooks, who offers eBooks? : eTextbooks](<a href=“http://www.cheaptextbooksforum.com/etextbooks/etextbook-availability-t8.html]What”>http://www.cheaptextbooksforum.com/etextbooks/etextbook-availability-t8.html)</p>