Barnes & Noble's ebook reader takes its bow
Nook what we have here
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To the surprise of no one, Barnes & Noble has unveiled a $259 Android-based ebook reader known as the Nook.
Word had already leaked onto the web, but the American book seller officially announced the US-only device with a press release this afternoon.
In an apparent effort to appeal to the world's Google lovers, B&N bills its new device as the first Android-based ebook reader. As expected, it offers a 6-inch "electronic ink" display for reading texts as well as a smaller color screen for navigation. The color display serves up a virtual keyboard - something you won't find on the Amazon Kindle.
Like its Amazonian nemesis, the Nook has a built-in cellular wireless connection for downloading texts. AT&T is the carrier (the Kindle uses Sprint). But there's also a built-in WiFi adapter, giving you free access the AT&T-powered hotspots in Barnes&Noble retail stores.
In another departure from the Kindle, the Nook includes tools for lending books to friends using iPhones, iPod Touches, PCs, Macs, and certain BlackBerries and Motorola smartphones.
However, it lacks the Kindle's text-to-speech tools. And it's rated battery life is 10 days, 4 days less than the Kindle. For more on the Nook, go here. ®
COMMENTS
@US-only
But if it's available to people with US addresses that's the whole world covered anyway! Well, at least in American eyes...
Why do these wrtetched ebook readers...
have to use pages? I mean, that's a rescriction imposed by the printing press. If you're reading from an Autocue you don't want to have to turn pages, so why should you do it in an ebook? Surely it would be much better if the text scrolled smoothly upwards at the speed you were reading?
Agree with Slabman
this is getting somewhere near what I want from an eBook reader.
I want:
- whiter background than the currently murky grey
- magazine subscriptions
- colour (though I can live without that for this generation or 2 of devices)
- Find (by on-screen keyboard)
- highlighting capability (by touch or stylus, not buttons)
- no DRM
- ability to accurately render PDF and CHM docs
- Realistic pricing of eBooks / eMags, not deadtree price + surchange for presumed piracy. In other words, not the rip-off iTunes model
I don't want:
- Wifi that eats battery for no useful purpose - I'm happy to download on my PC and connect the ebook reader to it. How many people *really* find themselves stuck somewhere with nothing to read and *need* to download a book from the WiFi hotspot, *right now*? If these people actually exist, I'm not one of them
- ebooks that cost a large portion of the price of the deadtree version (eg 100+% in the Waterstones/Sony model)
- buttons. Any buttons at all (well, except an on/off, and even that should just be by closing a cover on it)
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