I like it a lot better than the Kindle. There is a thread here called something like "B and N Nook vs. Kindle." I'll try to find it.
The screen of the Kindle was really annoying, I thought. It does a sort of flash, bang thing when you turn the page that I found very disruptive. The Nook has a speedy and unobtrusive page-turning ability. Just a quick flicker, and that's it.
I like the size of it very much. I bought a cover for it and with the cover, it's about the same size as the average paper-back, and very easy to hold and read. I take it with me outside quite a bit, and no problem reading in the sun.
It won't work for magazines, so if you want magazine subscriptions, you'll want the new Nook Color version.
So far I have not bought any books for it. I just check books out on-line from the library. That works very well and it serves me just fine. That said, I am on the waiting list for about a dozen books, and I can see it's going to take quite a while to get down to me, as I'm 32 out of 50 on one, 12 out of 20 on another, that sort of thing. So I might eventually break down and buy copies of the things I want to read, but so far I'm doing fine being, um, frugal. Some would say "cheap."