Nook Color

Barnes & Noble have created, and already planned to ship, the new Nook Color.  It is an e-reader in which you can download various books to your device instead of buying the print version.  Now, this device is offering color, making this technology look even more like an actual book.  The cost of this new device is $249, much more expensive than the $139 monochrome Kindle released by Amazon.com.

The Nook Color is a touch screen that offers brilliant colors and connections to the Web with WiFi.  It is available online or in stores at Barnes & Noble.  The preorders are already far exceeding the expectations of the company.

This new device focuses on reading.  It has access to Barnes and Noble’s library that contains 2 million downloadable books and more than 100 magazines and newspapers.  It contains a feature called ArticleView, which offers a clear and readable format of magazine articles.  You are able to share passages from books with friends through Facebook, Twitter, or in-book email system.  You can even digitally lend books to a friend for 14 days by using the LendMe feature.

The Nook Color is built on the Android 2.1 operating system.  This system is used to run many smartphones.  Early next year, the Nook is planning on releasing Android 2.2, which will allow you to play flash videos.  It currently contains Quickoffice for viewing documents, but does not have the capability to edit these documents.  Next year, the Nook Color will release an app store, in which you can download free or paid apps.  Right now, it has Pandora Internet Radio, chess, and Sudoku preloaded on the device, but much more is to come.

Katherine Boehret states “If you love reading and want to share your books with friends or reading updates with social networks, the Nook Color has you covered. It will also give you a taste of tablet computing with functions like browsing the Web, using some apps and eventually, full emailing. Just remember that Nook Color is laser-focused on e-reading.”  I believe this is a great and convenient way for those heavy readers to travel, share, and store books.  However, I will always be more interested and drawn toward the good old-fashioned print book.

Source: WSJ - Nook Color