I have the Nook 3g and the Nook color; love them both. Barnes and Noble have litterly thousands of free books. You can also get magazines, you buy the subscription on line at BnN and you pay only monthly, they are very cheap and you get the first 14 days for free and you can cancel anytime. There are lots of free apps plus low cost ones. You can save PDF docs on it and Office docs, etc. If you live close to a BnN you can go to free classes that will help you get more out of it and also read each day in the store for an hour, for free. You can connect either to your pc and download to your Nook or most all coffee shops, McDonalds, etc have free wireless. I don't know about all hospitals, but at ours you can't connect to the wireless with your Nook or Kindle or most Ipads. That is because on these devices you can't change you settings to auto connect and we have to keep our proxy settings on a separte part of our firewall (mandatory by law) so even though these devices can see the internet they can't connect. I went with the Nook because they allow you to get books, etc from more than just them. The first one I tried was a Sony and you had to buy only from them and they even cost more for the books. I took it back. Give it a try and see how you like it. There are even some FAQ on BnN that help solve alot of issues or questions. I love mine and I'd upgrade to the tablet if they made it to where I could change the settings and auto connect like my laptop can. The good thing is, if you live in an area that has fast foods and coffee shops, there is plenty of free wifi to get so even if I'm at work I can take my lunch break and download books. By the way, when my quiling/embroidery mags are ready to download, I also download a copy to my Nook.