Archive for the ‘Barnes and Noble new ebook reader’ tag
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.
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Lots of Press Releases Today, Timed to Steal Thunder from Amazon’s Launch of Kindle International no comments
Today there were several press releases, some of which did not contain a lot of new information and seemed timed more to distract from Amazon’s launch of the International version of the Kindle rather than to provide us with much new material.
Plastic Logic announced that its upcoming ereader will be named the Que and will debut at the CES this coming January 7th in Las Vegas. They released more photos, but nothing really new: only side views, no views of the actual display. In fact we see more of the hand model in the photo than we do of the Que.
The Que will have a screen size of 8.5 x 11 inches and will be mainly aimed at business users. It will have an e-ink based touchscreen that will be shatterproof. Supported formats include PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. AT&T will provide 3G connectivity, and Barnes and Noble will provide books for Plastic Logic’s upcoming ereader. Wi-Fi is also indicated.
Irex also put out another press release about their upcoming DR800SG, which was supposed to become available at Best Buy Stores later this month. The press release now says “later this fall”, so not sure if it will still be this month or not.
The DR800SG will also have a larger 8” screen and will be priced at $399. AT&T will also provide the 3G connection for this ereader, and Barnes and Noble is providing the ebookstore.
A new ereader from Spring Design named Alex was also introduced today. 
This ebook reader also sports a smaller LCD screen below the e-ink display similar to that shown in leaked photos of Barnes and Noble’s Athena which is expected to be unveiled at B & N’s press conference tomorrow. There is some speculation in fact that this is B & N’s new ereader, although the pictures look different.
Spring Design’s new ereader will feature a 6” e-ink screen and a 3.5” color LCD display. Not exactly pocket-sized. There is an SD card slot for added storage. Spring Design says that the Alex will release to “selected strategic partners” by the end of this year.
The Alex is based on Google’s Android and will have full browser capabilities, so this ereader should work well with Google Editions. It is more of a multimedia device though than current ereaders like the Kindle or Sony. I can imagine it being very easy to get distracted from reading with this device.
“This is the start of a whole new experience of reading content on e-books, potentially igniting a whole new industry in multimedia e-book publishing for secondary authors to create supplementary content that is hyper linked to the text. We are bringing life to books with audio, video, and annotations,” said Dr. Priscilla Lu, CEO of Spring Design. “This gives readers the ability to fully leverage the resources on the Web, and the tools available in search engines to augment the reading experience.”
Meanwhile, back at the launching of the Amazon Kindle with US and International Wireless, it seems like more of a tempest in a teapot with little enough thunder to go around. Looking at Amazon’s websites outside of the US it would be hard to know that something “groundbreaking” was taking place. The Kindle is not displayed on Amazon UK’s homepage, nor can it be found on the electronics or books category main pages. It was also MIA at other Amazon international sites I looked at until I finally found it in Japan. I guess if you are big in Japan……
It is increasingly looking as though the launch of Kindle International is aimed primarily at Americans travelling abroad. It also seems as though the international release was a rushed job because of the competition from all of the recently announced new ereaders which will be coming to market soon.
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Barnes and Noble’s Ereader Photos Leaked no comments
Barnes and Noble is expected to announce a new ereader at its upcoming press conference on October 20th. The new ereader is said to have a 6" e-ink screen with a smaller multitouch 480 x 144 pixel LCD color screen at the bottom which can be used to display book covers and may also be used as a virtual keypad. There is also a reading light at the top of the ereader.
Gizmodo has photos and in one you can make out the word "Athena" on the top of the device, so this may be its name.
Other rumored features are a wireless and/or WiFi connection.
If B & N’s new ereader has all of its features well implemented, this could make for a very interesting and competitive holiday season for ereaders. Irex’s new DR800 ereader should be out by the end of this month, and it also is tied to Barnes and Noble’s ebook store.
Photos Courtesy Gizmodo.
