Vibrant color touchscreens, apps, movies, and games may not sound like the sort of e-Reader you are familiar with. Many people have even asked recently if Amazon has an iPad killer in their hands with the new Kindle Fire.

While the Kindle Fire may take away some iPad sales, it is a more direct competitor with the Nook Color.  These two devices are much closer in price than the iPad (which starts at $500), and are both marketed as e-readers though they may be capable of much more than reading books and magazines.

For those that are considering either the Nook Color or the Kindle Fire for their personal e-Reader, there is one thing I want to point out before we get into comparing the two devices.  In order to get the vibrant colors that both devices are capable of, they had to drop the e-ink in favor of a back-lit LCD screen.

To put that in layman’s terms, the screen looks less like the pages of a book (like the e-ink does) and more like a computer screen.

Is that a bad thing?  Not necessarily, that makes it great for browsing the web, watching movies, and looking at magazines, but it will not work as well in direct sunlight and some people might notice it is harsher on their eyes for extended use.

Again, it all goes back to what fits you personally.  If vivid colors and the ability to do more than just read a book on your new device are what you are looking for, then one of these two e-Readers will be perfect for you.  Which one?  Let’s take a look…

Nook Color

Price: $249

• Over 200 Magazines and Newspapers Available
• Nook Kids – A library of interactive kids books
• Web Browsing – From Wikipedia to Facebook to Youtube
• Nook Friends – the ability to lend books to your friends with Nooks
• Storage expandable with SD card

 Kindle Fire

Price: $199

• Over 2,000,000 FREE books and another 800,000+ that are under $10
• Over 1,000 children’s books illustrated in vibrant color
• Powerful dual core processor
• Access to the Amazon AppStore
• Super fast internet browsing with Amazon Silk Web Browser which speeds up your web browsing by learning to predict what page you will browse to next
• Unlimited cloud storage
• Over 100,000 movies and TV shows

So which one of these devices wins my recommendation?  While the Nook Color is a great option, I have to give the crown to the Kindle Fire.  Amazon is selling a product of amazing quality, at an incredible price, and they have the content to put behind it.  With over 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books, you will never run out of entertainment on your new Kindle Fire.

Many recent reports say that Amazon is actually selling the Kindle Fire for less than it costs them to produce, which produces a win-win situation.  You get a great product at a closeout price and they get to earn your trust as a future customer.

That should help you decide between the Nook Color and the Kindle Fire – both are great devices, but my recommendation goes toward the Kindle.  If you want a more in depth comparison check out our more detailed product comparison.  Otherwise jump over to Amazon to get your new Kindle!  Or click the link below for a summary of this whole Kindle vs Nook discussion.