Faster Answers

I want to get an ebook reader as a present. Any opinions out there of people that have a kindle and also took a peek at a nook at the store?

the a color touch screen makes it much more intuitive to find and select books.
you can lend books to other users - lets them keep it for 12 days.
admittedly, the latter feature is not so useful until a significant amount of people actually has a nook.

i've heard that the nook is slow to launch books and flip pages

my 5 cents:
B&N currently doesn't have such a great selection of ebooks
the current firmware has been reported to be a little slow and somewhat incomplete
the nook doesn't seem to be able to read TXT files. hmm, isn't this is the most basic and universal file format for text?
for a mainstream person intending to read mainstream book & and holds some personal grudge against amazon - perfect.

The B&N nook is a solid ebook reader device, a little heaver than the kindle but also nice to the touch and sleeker with less buttons, giving
it an elegant appearance. The nook comes with 4 free books: Pride & Prejudice, Little Women by Louisa Alcott,Dracula by Bram Stoker, Tipping Point by Gladwell.
Starting up a book takes about 6 seconds, which may seem slow for people that haven't used ebook readers before but is normal across the ebook reader industry.
New to the market Ebooks run $9.99, older books are around $5.99.
The nook runs the Android OS so it's an open system and we can expect improvements and add-on applications to hit the market soon.