Barnes and Noble is in the late stages of announcing the first e-reader they have produced in two years. The Nook Glowlight Plus will heavily compete against the Kindle Voyage and Kobo GLO HD in terms of overall specs and a solid price point.
The Nations largest bookseller has begun to make changes to their main website in order to gear up for the full product listing. Currently they have a placeholder section for the Nook Glowlight Plus, which is said to comprise of an e-Ink Carta screen and a resolution of 1430 x 1080 and 300 PPI.
Customers have been waiting for Barnes and Noble to be relevant again in the e-reader arena. If they can release a compelling enough device, I think it should do really well in the US and UK. The one advantage that B&N has is their expansive bookstore chain, which makes impulse buys a real possibility. Speaking of price, this device should be launching for around $139 or so. This makes it a significantly more affordable device than the Samsung Galaxy S2 for Nook tablet.
Barnes and Noble has been biding their time for an announcement for the new e-Reader. Sources within the company have confirmed to me that they wanted to market the tablet first, in order to gain more revenue. They also wanted the internet fanfare to die down from all the new products that Apple and Amazon have produced in the last few weeks. It is important not to get lost in the shuffle and get all the big blogs talking.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
