The Nook Color was announced a short while ago. As some of you may or may not know, the Nook is Barnes and Noble’s eReader device and it is currently one of the bigger market share holders.
The original Nook had an advantage over other readers with a small color touchpad at the bottom for navigation. I suppose with the Nook Color, they decided to go all the way with their idea.
The eReader market is still in the introduction or growth stage of the product life cycle as it is only recently starting to pick up speed with the Kindle 3 leading the way. The entire eReader market is based around their innovative screen using eInk technology which has no glare, no backlight, and mimics pages in a paperback book. Amazon, being the pioneer of the industry with the original Kindle has slowly positioned these products to be solely for reading despite its ability to pull up pictures, listen to music and even browse the web. It differentiates itself from the tablet or handheld device market by heavily marketing the advantages of eInk for reading. You can read pages in direct sunlight without any glare, the screen is extremely crisp, etc. However, there are several key problems with eInk technology.
The problems make it fairly unsuitable as a tablet PC. eInk screens are truly like pages on a paperback book in that they have no color, it is purely black and white. They also have no backlight, so reading at night requires a nightlamp. Furthermore, eInk has a slow refresh rate, taking a few milliseconds to update the screen, making it unsuitable for displaying videos.
On the right hand side, we see the black and white eInk screen with a color LCD pad at the bottom for navigation. On the left is the new Nook Color.
It is interesting to see the Nook Color’s announcement as it took a radically different approach to developing their product. Looking at the design, I can only assume that the Nook Color is not only trying to address all of these issues at once, but also repositioning the device as something more suited for the average crowd. The Nook Color is an eReader that uses and LCD screen just like any other tablet out there. In trying to address the issues with eInk, Barnes and Noble has simply reversed to the same technology that Amazon and other eReader producers have spent the last several years describing why it is unsuitable for reading. Though it deals with all the weaknesses of eInk, it has, more or less, taken away the very technology that has created the industry in the first place.
Furthermore, Barnes and Noble has slightly repositioned the product by trying to sell the Nook Color as both an eReader as well as an Android tablet. With an LCD screen, it can now do things other tablets could long ago, play videos, browse the web in full color, etc. Though previously these eReaders have been targeted mainly at readers, the Nook Color is probably hoping to get a small piece of the tablet market as well. As such, the product is no longer seen as a nerdy niche product, but perhaps a slightly trendier tablet device.
Will this device compete with the likes of the iPad? Does this even constitute as a tablet?
Has the Nook Color truly innovated? Or did they simply decide that the eReader market is not a great industry to compete in and tried to move onwards to something else? I am very curious to see how exactly will people react to this change. It is definitely a bold move, but I think it may have just defeated the purpose for its own existence.