On Tuesday , Barnes & Noble updated its consecrate e - referee , theNook , and it did so in great fashion at an event at the caller ’s Union Square , New York store . The company is the secondment of the four e - lecturer computer hardware makers to announce an update this week ; Monday , Kobo announced its Kobo eReader Touch Edition .
The big newsworthiness about Barnes & Noble ’s Modern $ 139 Wi - Fi - only Nook — which , like the Amazon Kindle , maintains the same name in maliciousness of a complete redesign — is that the gadget eschews the original year - and - a - one-half - older Nook ’s clunky LCD navigation sieve for an eastward Ink display . The Nook now is all screen , and its compact size of it reflect that sack .
Where the original Nook ’s weight and size of it made it bulky and unwieldly , the young Nook ’s specs are encouraging . It matter 7.48 troy ounce , which is 35 percent abstemious than the original Nook . It ’s also more compact - it ’s 6 percent thinner and more than an inch shortsighted the first Nook . It measures 6.5 by 5.0 by 0.47 - inches .
electric battery life is notably up : Barnes & Noble say the Nook can last up to two month on a single bearing , with the Wi - Fi turned off .
The novel Nook uses a 6 - column inch E Ink Pearl showing , the same 800 by 600 pixel exhibit that Amazon and Sony integrate last summer and fall , respectively ; and the same exhibit as in Kobo ’s eReader Touch Edition . And like the Kobo , the Nook uses Neonode ’s Zeforce infrared touch stratum to provide a touch screen interface . With Barnes & Noble joining the skin senses party , that provide only Amazon as the last of the e - readers not using a touch projection screen design . The E Ink Pearl display improve demarcation and varlet - twist speed as compared with the now - antiquated E Ink video display on the original Nook .
The front face of the unexampled Nook has no buttons ; just a wide bezel that ’s a charcoal grey gray coloring material , similar to Amazon ’s Kindle . During the launching , Barnes & Noble made a bad slew of noting that the Nook has 37 fewer buttons than Kindle , a absolved reference to Amazon ’s continuing reliance on a keyboard .
Interestingly , the new Nook runs Android 2.1 ( the same mobile OS as the original Nook and Nook Color in the beginning shipped with ) and has 802.11 b / g / n Wi - Fi , with destitute Wi - Fi access at all Barnes & Noble computer memory and at AT&T hot spot nationally ; but there was no reference of a 3 G variant . The Nook has 2 GB of built - in storage , and a microSDHC add-in expansion slot additional storage . Its redesign user interface integrates B&N ’s Nook Friends social connection , something which also arise on Nook Color ( ) . Nook support ePub and PDF single file ; and JPEG , GIF , PNG , and BMP persona files .
The Nook is useable for pre - order now , and starts shipping June 10 . Or look for it in stores at Barnes & Noble , Best Buy , Walmart , Books - A - Million , and Staples .
