Catching up to Kindle and iPad, Barnes & Noble introduces new touchscreen Nook
Barnes and Noble on Tuesday unveiled its new touchscreen Nook Simple Touch e-reader, the company's first Nook to lack a color screen and Android branding.
Yesterday, e-reader company Kobo introduced the Kobo eReader Touch Edition which is bound for Borders in the U.S. and Indigo in Canada later this month for $129.99. Today, Barnes and Noble revealed its answer to that device, with very similar specs and a price only $10 higher.
Like the Kobo Touch Edition, the Nook Simple Touch has a 6" display with infrared touch capability, Wi-Fi connectivity and a microSD slot for expanded storage. It also offers the same 800MHz processing power, except instead of a Freescale i.MX processor, the Nook Simple Touch is equipped with a Texas Instruments OMAP 3 chip.
Barnes and Noble CEO William Lynch on Tuesday said the device is 35% lighter and 15% thinner than the first generation Nook. It weighs only 7.5 ounces, and can run for 2 months on a single charge.
Obviously, the device is addressing a different market segment than the Nook Color, which has proven to be a breakout hit as an Android tablet. Lynch said he thinks Nook Color has become the United States' #1 Android tablet, and indeed, the #2 tablet altogether behind Apple's iPad, giving it a tablet market share potentially as high as 10%.
Despite the prestige that position holds, and the fact that over a million apps have already been downloaded from the Nook App store, Nook holds a comparably small share of its intended market: ebooks. Today, Lynch said its market share for ebooks is about 25%.
By offering a lightweight, easy-to-use, pure reading device, Barnes and Noble is attempting to grow its position in the ebook market against Amazon and its dominant Kindle. Still, to be second place in both e-readers and tablets is not too shabby of a position to hold.
Nook Simple Touch will begin shipping on June 10th for $139.99.