Excellent Lisa!
Most of the WiFi Nooks will have the 1.4 software pre-installed; the post I created on comparison of the Nook-Kindle and Sony Daily Edition had me forget to state the ease of replacement of the battery and SD Card update.
Also; the Nook is "not just for B+N but an outreach to sideload, and Google EPub; so many good things about the Nook and it's non restrictive nature vs only Amazon content.