Nook Color Sound Quality Question

The answer to your question will depend upon the quality of your earphones or headphones and the source material. Both products use integrated audio chips that provide basic sound quality so do not expect the world from either. I have lukewarm opinions about Apple products too due to their pricey cachet compared to competing products that are of similar quality. I too own an Amazon Kindle 3G + Wi-Fi and I thought about buying a Barnes & Noble Nook Color, but it lacks Froyo 2.2 and access to the Android applications market. There is a rumor on the Internet that both upgrades will be incorporated sometime next year so it will improve the value proposition of the Nook Color as a bona fide tablet. This has not been confirmed by Barnes & Noble yet.

Remember: the Apple iPad can have access to Barnes & Noble and Amazon along with the Apple bookstores. If your girlfriend reads a lot, then it would be prudent to spend at least twice the money to get the iPad.

I love my kindle, because I just use it for reading

I say buy a ipad because it's user friendly, just get a warranty from squaretrade for it also

Apple likes to break your products and blame it on you for the damage, warranty helps

The nook is absolutely horrible. I tried one out at BN, and I hated it!

I've been into tech since I was 2, I've written programs, hacked systems, made my own computer from scratch, taken apart a car's computer and made a new one so ti would shift better, altered programs, and a whole list

BUT IT FRUSTRATES ME!!!

they actually have free meetings at BN so you can teach you how to use the damn thing

Pros:

Nice screen

Back is durable

Cons:

UI

Touch screen

Glare

Speed

UI

UI

UI

Pretty much everything that they made the thing for

Go for a Ipad, though I could tell you to get a netbook (because I carry around my netbook with my kindle)

The Nook Color sounds BAD.  The headphone output is dirtier than my laptop's output and also sounds ridiculously thin.  I started off with Pandora and Ultimate Ears MetroFi-220s and it sounded like I was listening to 22k files.  So I transferred some 320kbps mp3s that I know extremely well and broke out the SE530s.  Not much better, to be honest....  No bass, muffled treble.  Synth drums that usually kick me in the head sounded lifeless with absolutely no impact at all.  I'm not going to bother keeping any music on the Nook - I'll save the memory for books and vids.  And that's fine - the audio player was only ever going to be a bonus, and I've got a pocket I can throw my iPod in.  

It's a couple of days later and I need to add a bit more.  I'm not sure what's going on with my Nook Color.  I was watching a video on it the other day, and all of a sudden the sound got louder and fuller.  I checked out a couple of mp3s and they sounded MUCH better.   This was with the Ultimate Ears.  I unplugged them and tried the Shures.  The sound sucked.  Tried the UEs again.  The sound sucked.  Gave up and went to bed.  Today I tried again, and it sounds good with both pairs of IEMs...   To be honest, I don't know what the blinking flip is going on....

I found my Nook Color headphone jack to be extremely tight.  After forcing a plug into it to listen to Pandora, I found the plug was scored by a very tight contact in the jack.  I exchanged my Nook Color for another which had exactly the same issue.

Be warned.

The signal to noise ratio was terrible when I was listening to music.  Not much time was taken with the audio circuit.

I've been playing with my Nook Color for a few weeks now and, while it's a pretty nice tablet on the whole, the audio quality is awful. The excess noise on the headphone jack is disappointing. The jack itself - as mentioned above - is extremely tight and scores headphone plugs. Further, my music inexplicably skips when played through the stock music app or through Winamp. I've heard PowerAMP adds a lot to the sound quality on Android tablets and I may give it a try eventually, but I'm pretty disappointed with the Nook Color's default audio playback.