NOOKcolor
Jinfo Blog

27th October 2010

By Nancy Davis Kho

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It's got a full color multi- touch screen, runs apps, allows you to surf the Web…and yet it's not made by Apple. This week Barnes & Noble rolled out its newest iteration of the NOOK, NOOKcolor, and it appears to be an evolutionary jump from the standard black and white eReader towards a more fully functioned tablet PC (http://digbig.com/5bcrpp). As James McQuivey, who covers consumer product strategy for Forrester, pointed out in his Oct 26 blog posting, 'Because one day, all eReaders will be tablets, just as all tablets are already eReaders', ( http://digbig.com/5bcrpm). The new NOOK features a 7 inch full color display and built in WiFi, making comparisons to the iPad inevitable, but it also includes functionality that help replicate the offline reading experience: AliveTouch technology aimed at making kids' storybooks more interactive, LendMe technology to allow device owners to share books between NOOKs, and NOOKfriends, which enables a reader to stay connected with friends via Facebook and Twitter directly from the device. All in all, the NOOKcolor appears to be taking a big step up from the eReader pack in the direction of a tablet computer. The pricing, too, reinforces this positioning. At US$249 it's about US$100 more than the black and white Nook or Amazon's Kindle, the dominant player in the eReader market. But it's about half the price of an iPad. For readers who'd like a bit more functionality in their reading devices, or tablet users who may not need all the computing power (or don't want to go for the price tag on) the iPad. With the holidays fast approaching, it wouldn't be surprising if further price cuts are in store for black and white eReaders - some analysts are predicting that they'll fall under US$100 in time for holiday shopping. At the same time, the Barnes and Noble move ups the ante for Sony and Amazon to offer more functionality on their devices - or at the very least, color and multi-touch capabilities.

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