Barnes & Noble, with more than 700 physical locations in the U.S. and an online store, is making a serious attempt to dethrone the Kindle as the early e-reader market leader. Starting at the end of November, the Nook will sell for US$259 -- same price as the domestic-only Kindle. Like Amazon's device, the Nook features instant wireless downloads of books, newspapers and magazines. The Nook will use AT&T's 3G network for its over-the-air downloads. Both devices store about 1,500 books and are about eight inches long and five inches wide. Both take advantage of a wide selection of books available for download -- Amazon touts 350,000 books, while B&N says it will have "1 million" choices, but appears to be including newspapers and magazines in that number.
The similarities end there. Barnes & Noble has added a color touchscreen section to the bottom portion of the device's face. Most of the upper portion supports 16-level grayscale e-ink, but the 3.5 inch touchscreen section enables navigation, browsing and flipping through book cover art. Another key difference: the LendMe technology that allows users to lend the books they've downloaded to anyone else who is using another Nook, or is using Barnes and Noble's e-reader software on a smartphone, PC or Mac. The "borrowed" books disappear after 14 days. The Nook can also access Barnes & Noble WiFi hotspots in stores for downloads and browsing.