If it is dark and you want to read your favourite book without disturbing your partner, then you have remedy in new Nook e-reader. Barnes & Noble Inc revealed an e-reader, which is black-and-white device with a softly glowing backlit screen.
The 6″ inch (15-cm) touch-screen device, which will hit stores in early May for $139, lands in a market where Apple Inc and Amazon are battling with Barnes & Noble for customers who want to read books and magazines on small portable devices. Weighing just under 7 ounces (200 grams), it is Barnes & Noble’s lightest Nook yet and is aimed at people who want to read in the dark.
The cost is a significant step up from the $99 for the black-and-white Nook, which made its debut last May. In November, Consumer Reports compared the Nook Simple Touch to the Kindle Touch, one of Amazon’s black-and-white e-readers, and gave the Nook a higher rating for readability and faster page turns. without a light.
William J Lynch Jr, the chief executive of Barnes & Noble, the nation’s largest bookstore chain, said the new device could be seen as two e-readers in one. The glowing back screen can be activated with the press of a button, but when it is not in use, the e-reader functions as a standard e-ink device, which is easier to read in sunlight than a tablet like the iPad with an LCD display.
Tablets like the iPad tend to be two to three times heavier than the latest generation of black-and-white e-readers, making them more unwieldy. They also have screens that emit a harsher, glaring light. The new Nook does not require a clip-on reading light like those that have been sold as accessories for the device. Barnes & Noble said that according to a recent survey of adults who read, 64 % read in bed regularly.
While Barnes & Noble is first to market with a glowing e-reader, Amazon may follow suit shortly. The Internet retailer is working on releasing its own e-reader with a glowing screen, according to a report in the blog site of TechCrunch. Amazon has not issued any comment to this report.
With advancements in technology, e-readers are becoming more and more readable and popular. We will see shortly all the students carrying e-reader or tablet for studying and that day is nor far off. As blogged earlier, alarm bells have started ringing for printing companies as their orders for printed books will keep on shrinking.
