The Nook Color

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Nook Color Basics
Beginning in the middle of November Barnes and Noble has made available a new eBook that allows reading in a colored format. At two hundred forty-nine dollars, the new device has a seven-inch, 1024 x 600 resolution screen with the new technology of anti-glare viewing. The laminate-like screen allows easy reading without the distraction of light glare.

The Nook Color has built-in Wi-Fi capabilities and differs from Barnes and Noble's earlier, black and white version of the Nook that has 3G network capabilities. The Nook Color instead allows online access wherever Wi-Fi is available. Eliminating the 3G network capability can be a negative aspect to the new Nook, but free Wi-Fi networks are more readily available and can minimize this minor loss.

The new eBook has a battery life of eight hours on a single charge and allows online access to buying books. Not only can books be acquired for downloading, Barnes and Noble has also provided access to more than two million books. Weighing less than one pound, the Nook Color has eight gigabytes of memory, so just one device can hold up to six thousand books at one time.

Like the iPad, the Nook Color has a touchscreen for hands-on discovery. All book fonts can be adjusted into many sizes for any specific reader. All fonts can also be altered in color from the lightest of grays to the darkest of blacks.

Features
The new Nook Color contains an operating system through the Google Android system, allowing for secure searching and web access. Unlike other eBook devices, this system has high interaction for social purposes. Now owners not only can read using their Nook Color but can also search the Internet and social networks.

New applications are available with the new developer platform, such as "reading-centric apps" that users can build on their own. Other applications allow users to recommend books to their friends through Facebook and Twitter with only the click of one button. The "LendMe" application allows a user to "lend" one of his or her purchased books to another user without cost. However the lend expires within fourteen days of the exchange. The Nook Color acts similar to a computer but is as simple as a cellular phone.

To eliminate the stress that hyper-backlighting of computers and cellular phones have on the eyes, the Nook Color has a revolutionary backlighting and scripted font. A Nook Color screen can be viewed from multiple angles without becoming black or transparent. An image can also be viewed in different formats. While reading a book the screen can be displayed in a portrait, longitude manner, or while searching the Internet the screen can be displayed in a landscape, latitude manner.

A new feature also allows each user to personalize the homepage with whichever books he or she likes the most. This can also include a favorite newspaper subscription or magazine subscription. Like a computer a user can also personalize his or her Nook Color's background with personal photographs or other designs.

Audiences
Barnes and Noble created the Nook Color for younger, adolescent readers to enjoy reading with the interest of technology and the amplification computer coloring. Parents are also a separate target for this new device. Barnes and Noble provides an online children's book catalog along with its adult reading selections. This new feature allows access to eleven thousand chapter books for middle grade readers and picture books for early and upper elementary readers.

Interactive children's books are also accessible through AliveTouch technologies. These books allow children to read with animated characters and to learn to read through a "read with me" feature with an adult narrator. Rather than taking multiple books while traveling, all of a child's books can be stored in one convenient location. Unlike other children's learning-to-read devices, the Nook Color allows parents and children to use the same eBook for learning and enjoyment.

Comparisons
Buying books is cheaper through the Nook system and are available online through the Barnes and Nobel eBook store. Its books are competitively priced against Amazon's Kindle, at ten dollars or fewer. Along with web browsing and a colored screen, the Nook Color also provides office document applications for creating and editing documents as well as access to Pandora music and Sudoku games.

All of these applications transform the new Nook from more than an eBook device similar to the Kindle but less than a computer tablet similar to Apple's iPad. Besides the extreme in price difference, the iPad does have many of the same features as the Nook Color. With e-reading capabilities, Internet searching, video capabilities, and applications for multimedia, the iPad perhaps on varies to the Nook Color in purpose, price, weight, and size.

Unlike Amazon's Kindle, Barnes and Noble's Nook Color allows access to newspapers and magazines, all of which are displayed in full color. Prices for these functions vary, though a fourteen-day free trial subscription is available. Other eBook devices include Sony's Reader and Border's Kobo. Prior to the Nook Color's release, Amazon's Kindle trumped them all. Having sold several million devices in the past three years, the Kindle's reign may be coming to an end. The Nook has already sold over a million devices, with nearly a million sales pending.

Negatives
Amazon's Kindle provides a rather large catalog of books, mostly due to having been on the market for two extra years. The prices of these books are sometimes lower on the Amazon website than on the Barnes and Noble website. Many customers have complained about the high prices for all three distributors -- Apple, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.

Barnes and Noble has stated that is provides over two million titles on its website; however, many of these books were published prior to 1920. This means that a majority of the books fall into the public domain category. On the other hand, a majority of the public domain books are not available in the Amazon catalog, though nearly eight hundred thousand titles are present.