Microsoft Invests $300 Million in Nook to Take on Amazon and Apple in E-Book Market

[yojitani]

What could go wrong?

 

[Hyper-X]

I'm happy for Amazon with their Kindle Fire, I think they're on a good track and I hope MS is successful with the Nook as well. The world's too small to have too small a diversity with mobile devices. For a lot of people, a simple device to read books, surf and shop on the web, take some notes and exchange email is all they need. I myself have bought 42 ebooks on Amazon and downloaded it to my Kindle app on my iPad 3 and I think it's great.

MS and Apple has stumbled a lot in the past with tech devices and technology but a key factor in the success of anything is the timing in which it comes out. Apple has gone one further and created a cult/culture involving the ownership of their products and while it doesn't seem all that big of a deal, it does influence how someone purchases an iOS product.

 

[GripperDon]

Smart Mpve

Good thinking MS

 

[EbookReader]

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-09-26/barnes-and-noble-unveils-9-inch-nook-as-cheaper-ipad
Barnes & Noble Unveils 9-Inch Nook as Cheaper IPad

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012...ces-new-nook-tablets/?comments=1#comments-bar

The Nook HD is a 7" tablet with a 1440x900 resolution—this 243 pixels-per-inch display puts it within reach of the Retina iPad's 264 PPI, and slightly ahead of the 216 PPI in the 1280x800 Nexus 7 and the 7" Kindle Fire HD. The tablet is comparable in size to other 7" tablets, but is slightly thinner and lighter than both the Nexus 7 and Amazon's offering.

On the inside of the tablet is a 1.3GHz dual-core OMAP 4470 from Texas Instruments, a slight bump up from the 1.0GHz OMAP 4 in last year's Nook Tablet. Most of the tablets in both Amazon's and Barnes & Noble's lineups are using some version on the Cortex A9-based OMAP 4, which won't set any speed records when compared to quad-core processors like the one in the Nexus 7 or quicker dual-core processors like the one in the iPhone 5.

The smaller tablet will be available in both Snow (white) and Slate (dark grey), and 8GB and 16GB capacities will set you back $199 and $229 respectively.

While the Nook HD is more of a replacement for the current Nook Tablet, the Nook HD+ is a new product category for Barnes & Noble—it's a 9" tablet with a 256 PPI 1920x1280 display. If the Barnes & Noble product page is accurate, this resolution is a bit of an odd choice, since it gives the tablet a non-standard aspect ratio different from the 16:10 used in the Nook HD (or the 16:9 used by the 8.9" Kindle Fire HD)—a true 16:10 display would actually be 1920x1200. We won't know whether this resolution has an effect on video or apps until we have the device in-hand.

Powering the HD+ is a 1.5GHz OMAP 4470, a slightly faster version of the chip used by the Nook HD. The larger tablet is available in the dark grey Slate color only, and comes in both 16GB and 32GB versions for $269 and $299. This slightly undercuts the $299 entry price of Amazon's 16GB 8.9" Kindle Fire HD.

8GB (7inches) $199 with 1440x900
16GB (7 inches) $229 with 1440x900

16GB (9 inches) $269 with 1920x1280
32GB (9 inches) $299 with 1920x1280

So from 8GB to 16GB, B&N charges extra $30. From 16GB to 32GB, B&N charges an extra $30.

Very consumer friendly.

 

[EbookReader]

CNET First Look videos:

 

[EbookReader]

http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/26/nook-hd-whats-changed/
Barnes & Noble Nook HD, HD+ vs. Nook Tablet: what's changed?