Nook Color | experience it all.

Kindle Fire, meet your head-to-head competition. Today Barnes & Noble announced their latest e-reader, the Nook Tablet. On the outside, the Nook Tablet looks nearly identical to its predecessor the Nook Color. This time around, it’s almost entirely what’s on the inside that really counts. The Tablet is fast, packing a 1GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM. The 7-inch multitouch screen (1024 x 600) displays 16 million colors ultra-bright and features full IPS lamination to reduce reflection and glare and offer extra-wide viewing angles and clarity. The display can play full HD 1080p content. Battery life is quite impressive, too. The Tablet offers up 11.5 hours of reading time or 9 hours of video viewing. There’s 16GB of onboard storage, and this can be expanded with an SD card. Built-in WiFi allows for web surfing and downloading books, magazines, newspapers, comic books, apps and other content. (Note that though the Tablet runs Android Gingerbread, users will not have access to the Android Marketplace.) It’s thinner than the Color weighing in at 14.1 ounces and it features a soft touch back design. A built-in microphone allows users to take advantage of the new Read and Record feature which allows parents to record narration and let their kids play it back when they’re reading their favorite stories. The newest Nook also sees an upgrade in entertainment selection. It comes preloaded with Netflix and Hulu Plus apps for movie and TV show selections (Flixster with UltraViolet is coming soon) and Pandora, Rhapsody, Grooveshark, and MOG are available for streaming music.

During their press event, B&N highlighted their Tablet’s advantages over Kindle’s Fire. In addition to featuring a better display with superior viewing angle, more than 2X the memory, a lighter design, more RAM, and better content rendering, Nook Tablet owners will also have the assurance that if they ever need product support they can visit a local Barnes & Noble store to resolve their issue. That is something Amazon sadly can never offer as it is strictly an e-tailer. The Nook Tablet is now up for preorder at $249 and it releases next week on November 18. That is a fat $50 more than the direct competition coming from Amazon, so be careful when you’re shopping this holiday season.

Besides announcing the Nook Tablet, B&N also took time to refresh and make cheaper their other e-readers. The new and improved Nook Color will ship with B&N’s “largest software update ever” that will bring Netflix, Hulu Plus, and music streaming apps to the device, as well as a refreshed library and enhanced shopping experience. The new Color ships this December at $199. Existing owners of the Color will automatically receive the update at no cost over WiFi next month. And finally there’s the tried and true Nook, now renamed the Nook Simple Touch. It will also come preloaded with a software update that will enable better battery life (users can read for up to 2 months for one hour a day). The update, which is now available for existing Nook owners to download, also makes the screen crisper and the page turn rate faster. The rebranded Nook Simple Touch is available to buy today at a low $99 with “no annoying ads.” Stings a bit, doesn’t it Amazon? Game on.

[Via Barnes & Noble] Continue reading Barnes & Noble announces Nook Tablet, updates and drops prices of Nook Color & Nook Simple Touch →

Yesterday Barnes & Noble unveiled the next version of their Nook e-reader. Nook Color is more than a simple e-reader, proclaims B&N; they call it a “reader’s tablet.” Let’s run through the impressive specs and features, shall we? The new Nook was designed in collaboration with industrial designer Yves Behar and it packs a 7-inch (1024×600) LCD color touch display (from LG) that can show more than 16 million colors and has a wide viewing angle thanks to integrated IPS screen technology. The “VividView” display is covered with a lamination screen film that promises to minimize glare. E-ink is no where to be found here–this is LCD all the way. Liken this to iPad reading, not Kindle reading. It’s light and portable at 8.1” (height) by 5” (width) by 0.48” (depth) and 15.8 ounces. Built-in 802.11 b/g/n WiFi is used to explore, purchase, and share content. A 3G model was not announced. There’s 8GB of internal storage, and that can be expanded up to 32GB thanks to the microSD slot. B&N claims it has an eight hour battery life with WiFi turned off–a steep price to pay for color support (the original Nook boasts a 10-day battery lifespan). Nook Color runs Android all across its 7-inch touchscreen (the original Nook features a large E-ink screen with a small Android-powered touch display below it). Swiping through books and pinch-to-zoom are present and accounted for.

Content and apps time. The NOOKbook Store includes over two million books for Nook owners to preview and purchase. NOOKnewsstand brings a whole slew of newspapers, periodicals, and magazines to Nook; they include The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA TODAY, Rolling Stone, Esquire, US Weekly, National Geographic, Martha Stewart Living, Cosmopolitan, and Elle. Periodicals will be available by subscription and single copy. Reading is optimized for the touchscreen; ArticleView allows you to customize the reading experience to your liking. NOOK kids brings over 130 digital picture books and 12,000 chapter books aimed at children. AliveTouch enables children to interact with words and pictures; it also gives them the option for the device to read a story aloud (death to parenting!). The Read In Store program allows Nook owners to read Nookbooks for free one hour at a time inside B&N stores only. With the LendMe app, owners can lend their friends books and request to borrow books from friends; sharing books is free and books can be lended for up to 14 days. Books can be recommended and shared with friends over Facebook, Twitter, and email; yes, the Nook has gone social. Since Nook Color technically is a tablet too, developers can now create engaging apps for the device. B&N calls them “extras” and those available at launch will include Pandora (for music streaming), Quickoffice (for reading Microsoft Office files, PDFs, JEPGs, and more), and games (crossword puzzles, Sudoku, chess, etc.). Though it runs Android, users will not have access to the Android Market or Market apps. The upswing? A full browser is included to surf the web (Flash is not supported).

Nook Color hits store shevles November 19 for $249. You can preorder today at the B&N website. It will go on sale at Walmart, Best Buy, and Books-a-Million in late November. Full PR after the break.

In addition to announcing Nook Color, B&N took time to share details about a pending software update for the original Nook (WiFi) and Nook (WiFi+3G) models. Expect faster page-turn speed, improved search functionality, customized B&N Library organization, password protection, and continuous reading across all NOOK devices and software. Firmware update 1.5 will be available as a free download via WiFi this November.

[Via B&N; Engadget]