Some Say Barnes and Noble Nook Surpasses Kindle

For one, the Wall Street Journal said it has seen an ad for the new device. The Barnes and Noble Nook will reportedly feature a color touchscreen, below the e-ink display, with a price of $259. That is the same as Amazon.com's recently lowered price for the CDMA (translation: US only) version of the Kindle. However, the Nook will come with AT&T connectivity, which costs $299 on the Kindle.

The New York Times also reported that they themselves received an advertisement placed for the Barnes and Noble Nook to be placed in the Oct. 25th issue of The New York Times Book Review, which was distributed to publishers on Monday. According to their report, addition information is that the Nook will permit readers to lend their digital books to friends and download books wirelessly.

The Amazon Kindle has been the breakthrough device in terms of e-book readers. With that, other companies have jumped into the e-book market, with the Barnes and Noble Nook quite possibly the first real competitor to the Kindle.

The e-book market is still pretty small, however, but the Barnes and Noble Nook shows commitment by Amazon.com's biggest competitor. While the NYT notes that the Nook will be available at nook.com and Barnes and Noble stores, it's also rumored that B&N has a deal in place with Best Buy.

The Barnes and Noble Nook is being released at a good time for e-book readers. Analysts also believe the holidays might prove fruitful. According to the Codex Group, which is a consultant to the publishing industry, e-reader ownership is expected to roughly double to about 3.8 million by the end of this year, from about 1.6 million in August.

Written by Michael Santo