Hey, did you hear? Barnes and Noble launched a new ereader! Then again, it was kind of hard to avoid Barnes and Noble’s official launch of its new ereader, nook (and no, I didn’t screw up the capitalization – B&N’s marketing team has gone all e.e. cummings on us). It was the worst kept secret ever, leading to every tech reporter and his brother scrambling to be the first one to deliver the delicious device details.
Out of the gate, there are the obvious comparisons to competing e-reader devices. The lead competitor, of course, is the Amazon Kindle – and the nook makes some impressive advances:
- Built-in WiFi: The nook not only has a 3G wireless connection, it also has WiFi, which will allow nook users to tap into the free WiFi at Barnes and Noble locations. An interesting attempt to leverage B&N’s major differentiator from Amazon.com – physical stores.
- Person-to-person lending: The nook’s LendMe feature allows a user to share a book with another nook user. While this feature overcomes one of the challenges with ebooks, it appears this capability will be publisher-controllable. One has to wonder how many publishers will choose to enable this feature, and whether lack of LendMe support will be visible to customers prior to purchasing titles.
- SD slot: In addition to the 2GB of built-in memory, the nook also has an SD slot to allow the user to add additional memory. I’m not sure this is a real advantage, given the relatively small size of ebooks.
- LCD touchscreen: A nice way to enable input (via a virtual keyboard), and browse titles. Otherwise, I’m not sure this is really an advance – I have to wonder about the ramification on the device’s battery life.
- Android-based: As previously rumoured, the nook is build on Google’s Android operating system. This is hardly a compelling purchase criteria; however, it’s interesting to see Google’s new operating system branch out beyond mobile phones.
If you’re not sick of the nook yet, head on over to Gizmodo’s photos of the nook.
These advances may add a few more reasons to love ebooks, leading to the predicted e-reader Christmas-season showdown. It’s clear that (regardless of what Barnes and Noble may say) Barnes and Noble is still the follower in the market, behind Amazon.com. It will be interesting to see if this move allows Barnes and Noble to vault ahead of Sony, who’s still busy picking Amazon’s arrows out of its back.
The rumors are true: Barnes and Noble is getting back into the e-book business. In an interesting move, the company is not only partnering with Plastic Logic but also adopting an “every device” strategy that will allow them to target multiple devices with the same book offerings. The company is kicking off this effort with B&N eReader software, which the company is