Nook wins for readers.
The $199 Amazon Kindle and the $249 Barnes and Noble Nook beat the $399 iPad2 for books, for price, for screen resolution, and sound (the $349-$499 iPad3 has better resolution). The iPad has 30% better battery life, but all will last 2 days on one charge. I plug mine in every night or 2 and charge overnight. The iPad lets you do lots more, but most of what it does (email, Facebook, web surfing, etc.) is not what you’d want your kid doing unsupervised.
The Nook beats the Kindle at most features that have to do with reading. Barnes and Noble Nook has ability to read in the dark, has the better battery, allows you to get Barnes and Noble book previews, has pricing specials on Barnes and Noble book, offers more magazines, more color eBooks, has an integrated microphone. It has no multimedia system, so it’s less likely to be used for watching videos (may be an advantage!). Kindle looks cheaper, but to use its features, you’d have to be an Amazon Prime user, which is $79 a year.
Watch the video:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19736_7-57330571-251/kindle-fire-vs-nook-tablet-how-to-choose/
I’ve learned that an improved Nook is coming out in September or October 2012. My guess is that it will have iPad3-like resolution, and be in the same price range, which would send the cost of the current Nook plummeting.