Barnes and Noble’s New eReader Revealed no comments
Today Barnes and Noble officially unveiled their new ereader. It is very similar to the photos leaked a few days ago, but instead of the pretty cool name Athena the new ereader is called Nook.
Well, even if the name disappoints, I am glad that for the most part the
photos were pretty accurate. This is a much more elegant design than another duel screened ereader shown yesterday by Spring Design.
Some of the Nook’s features:
- 6” E-Ink screen with 16 gray scales
- 5 font sizes
- 2 GB internal storage + Micro SD card slot
- Wireless connection by AT&T; Wi-Fi
- Supports note taking and highlighting
- Built-in dictionary
- Size: 7.7” x 4.9” x 0.5”; weighs just over 11 ounces
- Supported Formats: EPUB, eReader, PDF, MP3, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP
- Use your own photos for screen saver
The 3.5 inch LCD touchscreen below the E-Ink screen is used for navigation and for selecting books to purchase. Books in your library are shown by their covers on the LCD screen.
If you have B & N’s eReader software installed on your iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry, PC or Mac your purchased books and your place in them will be synced across devices. Notes and annotations are also synchronized. You will also be able to lend most ebooks to friends for up to 14 days. An ebook can only be lent once apparently, and can only be on any one device at a time. This also works across other compatible platforms such as iPhone as long as your friend’s device has eReader installed.
The Nook comes with a micro USB cable, AC adapter and quick start guide. You will need to purchase a cover separately. Barnes and Noble has priced their new ereader at $259, and it should be available end of November. They are taking pre-orders now.
Of course we will have to wait to actually play with this new ereader, but it does seem to have some appealing features. The dual screen approach is a clever method of having the convenience of a touchscreen without its glare problems. Being able to lend books is really great and hopefully this will become a standard feature on ereaders in the future. The Kindle store has more ebook titles (not counting public domain) than Barnes and Noble, but the Nook definitely looks like a much more compelling choice than Sony’s ereaders.
