We’ve all been wondering when Barnes and Noble would finally update their original E Ink Nook—it’s been out nearly 18 months now; that’s pretty long by electronics standards—and now it looks like a new Nook, let’s dub it the Nook 2, will launch on May 24th.
This news comes via a federal filing that Barnes and Noble Inc. submitted on Wednesday that contained a single sentence of text to comply with fair disclosure rules, essentially stating that B&N intends to announce the launch of a new ereader device on May 24th.
There are no further details for now, so we’ll have to speculate. Sony and Amazon both use the new higher-contrast, zippier Pearl screens with their ereaders, so we all expect the Nook 2 to come with a Pearl display as well, unless it comes with some new type of screen technology like Mirasol.
The other question will be if B&N decides to remove the lower LCD pane that the original E Ink Nook has. That LCD pane reportedly adds considerable extra cost that keeps B&N from dropping the price as low as the Kindle.
The Nook 2 will most likely use a 6-inch screen like the original—that seems to be the most popular size. But a 7″ Nook 2 might not be out of the question either, given the 7″ screen on the Nook Color.
Maybe the new Nook will have a touchscreen. If they do it well like Sony did, it could be an advantage over the Kindle. It will most certainly come with WiFi, but 3G is a question. After all, the Nook Color doesn’t come with 3G.
Regardless of the specs, it’s good to know that a new Nook is finally on the way. In all likelihood the Nook 2 will probably be somewhat simple to keep cost down.
Source: WSJ
It’ll be interesting to see what the announcement is for. Speculation seems to be fairly evenly divided between “a new NOOK Color” and “a new e-paper NOOK”.
My cynicism brings me down on the “new NOOK Color” side. In my monthly visits to the “NOOK Night” at the local B&N store, it’s become almost 100% NOOK Color; nobody is showing up with a new E-Ink NOOK. I just don’t think that B&N sees much future in continuing to butt heads with Kindle in the e-paper reader market. NOOK Color is their best hope for challenging Amazon. B&N’s marketing and advertising these days is pretty much 100% NOOK Color.
B&N might do a Mirasol unit that essentially unifies the two product lines. But is Mirasol really ready to go?
Another possibility is a low-cost reader.
Well, I don’t know any more about it than anyone else. If it does turn out to be a new revision of the original NOOK, that’d be great.
Hi Doug,
I predict that it will be a new E Ink Nook focused on simplicity and low cost. I think that it will probably lack a few features to keep the price down that will turn some folks off.
I can guarantee it will not be a new Nook Color. I can’t help but laugh when I see all these news sites proclaiming a new Nook Color is on the way with Honeycomb. Mark my words: if B&N releases a Honeycomb Nook, I will give away my Nook Color to the first person that asks. A Honeycomb Nook makes absolutely no sense because B&N are in the business of selling ebooks, not hardware. A Honeycomb Nook would have to be unlocked and thus open to install 3rd party apps like Kindle—that’s something B&N would never do, and their new appstore is proof.
The latest Nook Color update is further evidence that a new Nook Color isn’t in the works. What would they improve on at this point that can’t be accomplished via firmware? About the only thing the NC could use as an improvement hardware-wise at this point is a faster processor. And that doesn’t really matter for reading ebooks and using the few apps available.
Mirasol isn’t going to happen either. The screen size doesn’t mesh.
The more I think about all this, the more I’m convinced it is going to be a E Ink Nook 2.
Yeah, I have to agree that I can’t see a high-end NOOK Color replacement right now. The current unit is selling quite well from what I can see, and there’s no *real* competition at that price point.
Setting aside Mirasol, which neither of us seems willing to put any money on, the likely candidates are low-end units sporting low prices. And for that, well, I dunno, I can’t see paying for E-Ink films and controllers. LCD is the cheap way to go. If it’s LCD, then the questions are:
1) is it backlit or is it like Libre; and
2) if it’s backlit, is it monochrome or color?
Oh, and there’s a third question: what wireless capabilities, if any, will it have?
We’ll know soon enough, I guess.
Perhaps they are going to ditch 3G altogether. There were reports back in January that they were going to stop making the 3G Nook, but the evidence never seemed to support that, unless they had a boatload already made to last all the way until now.
That’s a good idea about the LCD ereader to save some coin. I can’t wait to see how this pans out.