The Barnes & Noble Nook reader is here and boy is it hot. Just like yesterday’s WSJ report stated, it will be available for $259 and sport dual touchscreens along with wireless courtesy of WiFi and AT&T 3G wireless. Battery life isn’t too shabby either with a reported 10 day life off of an 3.5 hour charge. Yeah, you want this.
The Nook’s tech specs are impressive – 2GB of internal storage, a microSD slot, MP3 player, micro USB plug, 3.5MM jack and of course, those dual screens with an Vizplex e-ink display up top and a 3.5-inch color LCD touchscreen on the bottom – but it’s the software that’s killer. The device will allow users to share books for 14 days at a time and it’s not just limited to other Nooks. The books can be read on cellphones and computers too. Then there is the standard e-book features like bookmarking, notes, and highlighting. We’ll be on hand later at the official event to see what’s up with the dual screens.
No doubt the Nook takes the ebook reader up to a whole new level of cool, but it’s just too bad that the Barnes & Noble ebook store so far doesn’t live up to Amazon’s selection. There just doesn’t seem to be nearly as many obscure titles available. So if you’re thinking of investing $259 of your money into this new device, why not spend sometime in the B&N store to ensure it has the selection you need. Don’t worry, you have time. The Nook isn’t expected to ship until the end of November.
I love the microSD slot but hate the 3.5″ screen at the bottom. I’d rather have a larger reading screen.
You’ll love it if they start offering apps and games and movie support. :p
I don’t see why they wouldn’t. 3.5″ is the same size as the iPod Touch and I do all of that on there all the time.
Maybe somebody will hack it if they don’t. It’s all based on Android so can’t imagine it being too hard to do.
Video and Games will drain battery life. Hopefully the primary purpose of this device will be for reading.
It’s actually thinner width but still 3.5 diagonal. It’s not the same aspect ratio as the itouch but it’s still nice for basic control. :)
Agreed. It will be the difference for me between buying it or just keep on waiting
I love my Kindle but would love to try out another e-Reader. While the Kindle Hardware is cool, the software is clunky and missing a lot of key features. However the Kindle/Amazon eco-system is what you pay for. The integration with your Amazon Account is great, you get Amazon’s selection and you get Amazon’s digital locker so your purchased ebooks are actually “Stored” somewhere incase something happens to my Kindle I can simply deactive the Kindle and redownload the book.
I just wish the Kindle’s software was better and that it supported more formats like Word.
ohhhh… and no SIM Card slot? (European here!)
Searching for “Nook” on THEIR OWN website, http://www.bn.com, shows no evidence this product exists. Thus, I assume this is a hoax, perhaps perpetrated by B&N itself.
It’s right here: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook
I’m pretty excited about this. I’ll have to see what PDFs look like, but with epub support, this sounds like it’d do everything I’m looking for in an ebook reader.
I’m interested in the nook, I’ve wanted a Kindle for a while, but haven’t gotten one yet. It’s nice to have another option to consider.
I just do not understand why people think that more space is “better” when it comes to book readers. I can’t read any faster with 2 GB and much more place can be added by current memory cards SD, microSD, MSpro. And why the 2nd screen? I don’t need to see the other books while reading? How about a… bigger screen!? _>
More space is better because you can read more books -_- it isn’t supposed to impact your reading speed at all.