You can read iTunes, Kindle, and Nook media on it. And Apple will be around for a long time. Barnes & Noble? Maybe not.

And iOS is a solid easy to use OS, that the others fail to emulate.

had questions about the Nook-

She loves them both, seems to use the Nook more than the I-Pad.

web based (Gmail, or Yahoo?) also, how "big" is it in terms of 8 gigs or 16, etc? Thanks in advance!

For those with vision problems (in my case just old age) the feature that allows you to read books in large type is a blessing. (But I guess that is something available on almost all e-readers.)

I installed it on my mom's ipad and that's the one thing that my Fire HD has that her iPad does not.

The Kindle Fire HD does everything that the iPad does but it's cheaper.

Good for basic web browsing, but for Google Reader, the text is too small.

Great for reading books. With magazines, though, any 7-inch tablet (same size as Ipad mini) is going to be too small. With National Geographic, I sometimes have trouble reading the captions on the photos or on some of the graphics. You have to zoom in and out and it's kind of a pain. But Nook has a Tablet HD that is almost as big as an Ipad.

Keep in mind, Nooks and Kindles do not use the full Android OS. I'm considering a tablet but I refuse to buy and Ipad (I hate Apple generally and really prefer Android where possible) so I'm looking at the Asus Infinity something or another (I can't remember the name exactly) which has gotten good reviews and, while expensive, is cheaper than an Ipad and has expandable memory. I intend to use it as a laptop replacement for travel because my laptop is too large to carry around through the airport.

I still intend to use the Nook for reading books, though.

To be very specific, we are interested in the Audobon Guides, and being able to send emails (gmail)....it would be nice to be able to plug in headphones to use the google phone--

Other than that, maybe google maps, we really don't care about movies, gaming, etc-

Mine doesn't have a microphone, but I don't know about the new ones. I haven't tried Maps (I use my phone for that). The B&N App store is more limited than Google Play as well.