Popular book-seller Barnes & Noble has announced a new successor to their color-screen e-reader dubbed the ‘NOOKcolor.’ Retailing for $249 and expected to begin shipping on November 19, the newest version sports some interesting improvements over the first model.
Unlike Amazon’s Kindle, which is a pure e-reader fitted with a dedicated high-contrast E Ink Screen, the NOOKcolor has eschewed the excellent legibility and glare-resistance of such a display, instead opting for a 7-inch color touchscreen. And the differences don’t end there. The latest Nook device is truly more of an Android Tablet than e-reader, which from a product-positioning standpoint seems a little odd. It’s almost as if Barnes and Noble decided to position their product somewhere between the Kindle and the iPad, but in the process are losing the primary advantages of a dedicated e-reader: low-cost and extreme legibility even in direct sunlight.
I will leave it to consumers to decide if they need yet another Android-powered tablet device and instead focus on what the NOOKcolor brings to the table. Sporting a 7″ full-color touchscreen, the NOOKcolor comes standard with a full browser, the LendMe™ feature which allows owners of the devices to lend each other books, some social networking hooks to easily recommend books to your friends on Twitter or Facebook, and of course, access to over two million titles.
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