Barnes & Noble
Barnes and Noble released its new e-reader, the Nook, today. The device will go head to head with the popular Amazon Kindle and similar offerings from Sony.
Barnes and Noble Nook gets a reception fit for a king
Forget the Amazon Kindle. The Barnes and Noble Nook is now the e-reader to beat, many bloggers say.
By Matthew Shaer | 10.20.09
All hail the Barnes and Noble Nook, king of the e-reader heap.
After weeks of speculation, the bookseller Barnes and Noble has officially unveiled the Nook, an e-reader touted as the world’s most advanced. Where does this leave the Amazon Kindle 2? Temporarily boxed out. Coverage of a Nook event in New York city today dominated the publishing and tech blogs, with sites such as Channel Web opining that the “Nook has the hooks” to take down its competitors.
“Barnes & Noble’s new Nook e-reader is the e-reader that competitors must now beat,” David Coursey of PC World writes today. “So long Kindle 2, it was nice knowing you, but a better reader has come along. And just in time for the holidays, too. If Amazon doesn’t have a new model up its sleeve, it will be a Merry Christmas at B&N and a sack of coal for Amazon.”
Well, we’re not sure we’d put it quite that colorfully, but the Nook certainly is an major league contender. Among the features on the Nook are a 3.5-inch multi-touch color display – the Kindle has only a touch-pad – 2GB of built-in memory and Wi-Fi connectivity. There’s also an option for users to “lend” their friends parts of their e-book collection. The free loan period would last up to 2 weeks.
But the big selling point is the amount of content Barnes and Noble is going to make available. In July, Barnes and Noble announced it would create an electronic bookstore to sell more than 700,000 titles. By the end of this year, Barnes and Noble hopes to offer more than 1 million e-books, including every title currently made available in digital form.
By comparison, Amazon sells over 300,000 digital titles for the Kindle. That’s a fairly big discrepancy. Furthermore, as Coursey notes, “owners of the Nook can access 500,000 public domain titles from Google that are not available to Kindle users.”
The Nook, which will be priced at $259, is now available for pre-order. Are you sold? Weigh in down in the comments section, or you can drop us a line at Twitter. Find us @CSMHorizonsBlog.
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2. Jason N | 10.20.09
The lack of web browsing in the Nook is certainly a weakening factor. And the fact that public titles are mostly books no one reads doesn’t impress. If looking at a colored book title that you can move with your finger is the main attraction, then what’s the big deal?
3. damien | 10.21.09
If I were to get an eReader, then this would be the one I’d consider the most.
No web browser: Yeah, that kind of sucks. However, the Kindle’s browser is terrible! If the Nook can’t do better, then I’d rather them not have one at all.
Nook can lend to people without Nooks. That sounds weird 
Nook is powered by Google’s Android or Docs, so there’s a possibility of apps. I’d love to see Google Reader come to this. Of course, even the slightest amount of data will probably make AT&T’s network even worse
Also, Tony, I’d love to see a color eReader, but the e-ink screens are astonishingly expensive in color. I figured that if they made the main screen in color, then it’d add at least another $100 to the price.
5. ania | 10.21.09
I do not understand the importance of the Kindle now the NOOK Always a new gadget and People feel the neccisity to purchase. What is wrong with the Library? It is free. How about these new reading gadgets are they free or does one pay for them?
I will stick with book and library
6. Teenreader14 | 10.24.09
The kindle (2nd gen) and the nook have the same sized 6inch eink screen….. Nice -__-
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1. Tony Gillotte | 10.20.09
Where is the color function? And what about connecting to the internet in black and white? What a winner that will be. Also, the screen is tiny when compared to the larger Kindle 2 screen. So where are the advantages of Nook?
Tony Gillotte