Sometimes when you live in a country like Canada, UK, Europe, Australia or New Zealand, you might get the short end of the stick when it comes to new gadgets. Amazon is notorious for not shipping to major countries which makes the Kindle out of reach. Barnes and Noble also does not ship at all outside of the United States, so it’s hard to get any of their e-readers. Luckily Shop e-readers, our site sponsor, is offering exclusive pre-orders for both new devices.
So if you live outside of the USA and want to get your hands on the latest generation of e-reader technology now is the best time to pre-order the devices and have them shipped by the end of the month!
The Barnes and Noble Nook 2 is being billed as the simplest e-reader ever created! It features a full touchscreen 6 inch PEARL display with a resolution of 800×600 pixels and 16 levels of gray scale. The screen looks very good and is said to have 50% better contrast then the original Nook 3G and WFI. This new e-reader is blazing fast with the 800Mhz processor it has underneath the hood. It is running on the Google Android 2.1 OS, but no word yet if there are applications available to download or if Barnes and Noble will have an app store. It has a very a cool virtual keyboard that allows you to type notes, letters or emails. It has 2 GB of internal storage to hold your books and media content and you can further expand it via Micro SD up to 32 GB. The new unit has built in WIFI to access the internet and you can connect up free in any AT&T Hotspot or in any Barnes and Noble Store. Physically the unit only has 1 button, which is 37 fewer than the Kindle, the CEO Joked.
The Kobo Touch is six inches and has a virtual keyboard for typing. It will be able to display around 16 levels of greyscale and it has 1 GB of internal memory. You will be able to further enhance the memory up to 32 GB via an SD card. The unit is basically as small as a paperback novel and noticeably smaller then the latest generation Kindle. It is based on the Pearl e-Ink technology and is somewhat comparable to the Sony PRS-650 Touch. You will be able to read books by tapping or swiping like you would on the Apple iPad and many other Tablet devices. The device is powered by a Freescale i.MX507 processor. You will be able to connect up to the internet via the built in WI FI adapter. Kobo has re-designed the e-reader from previous iterations, instead of a D-Pad with 4 buttons it simply now just has a home button. One of the cool aspects of the Kobo Touch Edition is that it uses Neonode’s new zForce infrared touch technology to make reading on Kobo just like that of reading a real book. The Kobo Touch also features a built in dictionary to look up words and will feature an international dictionary for localized versions of the e-reader.
The big difference between the two e-readers is that with Kobo you can simply buy books anywhere in the world! The Barnes and Noble e-reader is a bit more trickier you need to register using a USA address but you can use your own credit card to pay for purchases and confirmation goes to your email address. Barnes and Noble NEVER sends anything to you via snail mail.
All e-readers come with 100 free ebooks in ePub format to get you reading right away. You also get a free DVD video tutorial that walks you through the entire setup process and gives you advanced hints.
Reserve your Kobo Touch HERE and Barnes and Noble Nook 2 – a Simple Touch Reader HERE. Don’t forget you can also get the Barnes and Noble Nook Color at Shop e-Readers as well! It makes an excellent graduation or Fathers Day gift.
via Press Release
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.
