Clever. Barnes & Noble introduced a reading device with a 7-inch color liquid-crystal display Tuesday that goes for $250, just half the price of Apple’s iPad, with its 9.7-inch screen.
The problem: Apple’s $229 iPod Touch is already waiting down there at the low end of the market for something like the NOOKcolor to show up. Sure, it only has a 3.5-inch screen. But it has books, too, thanks to Amazon’s Kindle software.
That said, I’m not as skeptical of the new Nook as CrunchGear’s Devin Coldeway:
“It was the wrong move for Barnes & Noble to change horses mid-race. The only thing e-readers (and this is supposed to be an e-reader, make no mistake) have as a defense against the tablet onslaught is their superior (and rapidly improving) e-ink displays.”
For starters, Barnes & Noble will be able to pump a lot of content into these tablets. It already has more than two million titles. Meanwhile, it can leave any heavy-duty software work to Google, by taking advantage of Android. Plus the touch-screen is a lot more compelling — especially for kids — than fiddling with the nobs and button on Amazon’s Kindle.
Amazon’s strategy, however, is looking pretty smart right now: let Apple and anyone who wants to cram Android onto a tablet computer scrap it out on anything with an LCD screen. Amazon can then put its software on these devices, and supply a better reading experience with a niche reader with a black-and-white e-ink screen that’s much easier on the eyes.
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