As expected, Barnes & Noble (motto: The Chain Book Store That Still Exists For Now) has debuted the next generation of its Nook reader. And as expected it looks to go up against the Kindle Fire. It’s called the Nook Tablet (creative!) and will sell for $249.
– 11.5 hour battery life (worse than Fire)
– Under a pound, 7 inch screen
– Preloaded with Hulu and Netflix
– Free cloud storage
– 1080p video
– You can record yourself reading a book to your child, complete with page turning
– You can pre-order now. Will arrive in store end of next week and to homes end of next week.
B&N also dropped the price of the Nook Color to $199 and the Nook Simple Touch (basic e-reader) to $99.
So the question is why someone would buy this over anything Amazon has to offer when Amazon comes in cheaper. Nook Tablet appears to have more memory. And the video options look pretty good (I’m told the Netflix is deeply integrated). But the big thing B&N appears to be pushing is that you can bring it into a B&N store, without an appointment, if you have any trouble with it. Kind of the e-reader version of the Apple Genius Bar.
Interesting approach.
I had a friend from Seattle visiting this weekend and she said the big Barnes & Noble in the high-end mall just closed down. She knew someone who worked there and they just said, “It’s the Kindle.”
And if they sell a lot of these things, aren’t they putting their own stores out of business?