That was quick. Apparently Engadget had it right. This morning Best Buy has the new Nook WiFi-only available for pre-order on their website.
Looking at the specs, the Nook WiFi appears to share all the same characteristics and features as the original Nook, just not the 3G. It has 2GB of internal memory, a microSD card slot, and supports PDF, EPUB, JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, PDB and MP3 formats. It has a 6-inch E Ink screen and a 3.5-inch color touchscreen below that for navigation.
The estimated arrival date shown on Best Buy is 6/28-7/3/2010 if ordered now, not sure if that’s correct or the default.
Additionally, the regular Nook is now priced at just $199 at Best Buy. But it is currently still listed at $259 from B&N’s website.
And there’s also no mention of any of this on Barnes and Noble’s website, so it seems that Best Buy may be jumping the gun a little.
$149 for a Nook! That really is an outstanding deal considering all the advanced features that is has. The Kobo eReader and Sony PRS-300, both priced in the same area, are going to have a lot harder time now. And it’ll be interesting to see how Amazon responds to one of their biggest competitors beating them to a $149 ebook reader.
Update: B&N issued a press release making all this official. And they did confirm that the regular Nook will now sell for $199. Barnes and Noble now has the Nook WiFi listed on their website as well, along with the lower-priced 3G version.
The pr also mentions a new firmware upgrade, version 1.4, that gives all Nook 3G and Nook WiFi owners complimentary high-speed access to AT&T’s entire nationwide WiFi network. The update also has a new Go To Page feature, a new extra large font size, and some performance enhancements to open ebooks faster.