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B&N's Nook leads the e-reader parade
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Barnes & Noble's Nook is the first e-reader with a partial color display.
Nov. 4, 2009 – Here comes the parade of new electronic book readers, which is forcing some of the standard bearers to drop their jaws and their prices as the competition heats.
The latest entries in the e-book wars include Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Asus’s dual page e-reader, which reportedly will offer a color display and two screens when it hits the market next year, and Creative Mediabook, which the Korean electronics maker that announced at its Annual General Meeting earlier this month and which appears to be a touch-screen multimedia tablet that not only would wirelessly download books, newspapers and magazines but, running on the company's Zii Technology, will also be a internet-enabled device that plays music and other media.
Apple reportedly is also planning to tap into the e-reader craze and is expected to offer a tablet-like electronic reading device in 2010 with features similar to those of Creative’s Mediabook.
Many of these elaborate e-book type devices are still in development, and not expected to hit the market any time soon. But one, in particular, that caught my attention and will hit the market later this month, does hold the promise of turning up the heat on Sony and Amazon, the current e-reader leader which recently dropped the price of its Kindle2 by $40 to $259.
Barnes & Noble’s Nook, which also is being offered for $259 and expected to be delivered to pre-order customers on Nov. 30, has an attractive set of features that will make you think twice before buying one of the e-book readers already on the market.
What do you get for $259?
In many ways the Nook resembles Amazon’s Kindle. It gives you wireless access over a 3G connection to more than 1 million titles, including bestsellers and new releases – many priced at $9.99, plus your favorite newspapers and magazines. Nook owners will also have the ability to borrow EPUB books from local libraries, play music, read PDF documents and book samples and view photos on its paper-like E Ink ® display. As is standard for newer e-readers, the Nook also allows for note taking and bookmarks.
What’s exciting is that Nook owners will also be able to share their books with friends who also have Nooks and scroll through the color touch screen display of covers of books in their collections. You can also load images for wallpaper and screensavers using the JPG, GIF, PNG, or BMP formats.
With 5 font sizes and 2GB of internal storage, you can make the text bigger, store as many as 1,500 eBooks, newspapers, and magazines or more by installing a memory card.
Coming in at 11.2 ounces, and 7.7 inches high, 4.9 inches wide and 0.5 inches deep, the Nook’s eye-catching color display and svelte profile make it a beautiful thing.
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