Barnes & Noble's Nook: A Virtual E-reader Tour

Barnes & Noble's new Nook e-reader offers more than just the basics such as a touchscreen and a color display.

By Jared Newman, PCWorld

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The Lure

Features aside, Barnes & Noble is in an excellent position to sell e-readers, because it's already got a killer retail platform. There's no need to strike deals with electronics vendors when you've already got all the floor space you need, plus a demographic that is obviously there because they like reading. Until brick and mortar dies, this might be the Kindle's biggest problem.

The Form

The Nook measures 7.7 by 4.9 by 0.5 inches, giving it similar dimensions to Amazon's Kindle (the Kindle is a little bit taller and wider, but slightly thinner). Actual screen real estate, however, is the same 6 inches after you account for the navigation touch screen.

Touch Screen Navigation

Not all of the Nook is touchable. The top portion is a regular E-Ink display, but the bottom screen is like the touch screen of a smartphone, handling menu navigation and giving you a virtual keyboard for typing in notes.

The iPod of Books

By including a color touch screen, Barnes & Noble's Nook pops out compared to the bland grays of other e-readers. When looking through your library, e-books scroll by in a way that reminds me of the iPod's cover flow. Oh, and the Nook also works as an MP3 player.

A Little More Openness

Barnes & Noble took the bold, but clever step of letting users lend e-books to each other for up to two weeks at a time. That encourages more hardware sales (if I had a Nook, I'd want my friends to own one too), which in turn will lead to more book sales. Nook also supports the open ePub format, dealing a little more damage to Amazon's proprietary store.

Big Battery, Decent Storage

Barnes & Noble claims that the Nook lasts 10 days on a charge. It's not clear how the company came at that calculation and whether Wi-Fi was turned on for the duration, but it's safe to say you could take this device on a long flight. For storage, the Nook's 2 GB can carry up 1,500 e-books, same as the Kindle.

Features and More Features

Powering the Nook is Android 1.5, and it carries an admirable feature set. Users can stop reading on the device, and then pick up on select Blackberry and Motorola phones with a free Barnes & Noble e-reader app. I also like the ability to load photos onto the Nook as screensavers.

Accessorize!

It's not unheard of to throw some binding on an e-reader to make it feel more book-like, but the Nook's getting fancy with contributions from Kate Spade New York, Jack Spade, Jonathan Adler,Tahari (pictured). You might seem trendy with book in hand after all.