Nook Tablet Beats Expectations, B&N Considers Nook Spin-off
by Andrew Cunningham on January 5, 2012 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Nook Tablet
- Mobile
- Nook
- Tablets
Barnes & Noble announced via a press release today that sales of its Nook lineup, including the new Nook Tablet, the older Nook Color, and the Nook Simple Touch E-Ink e-reader, were up 70 percent over last year due in part to strong performance by the Nook Tablet. Sales of the Nook Simple Touch were lower than expected, however, which Barnes & Noble attributes to a "customer preference for color devices."
Because of this generally strong performance, the company is considering spinning the Nook unit off into a separate business. If it happens, Barnes & Noble cautions that such a move would only come after an evaluation process of indeterminate length. Whether it's separated or not, B&N expects its Nook business to continue growing year-over-year both in the United States and abroad. While all of these sales numbers look good for Barnes & Noble, neither they nor Amazon (nor other e-reader outfits, like Canadian company Kobo) release hard sales figures for any of their devices, making it difficult to see how their sales stack up to one another.
The Nook Tablet, which includes a 1GHz dual-core TI OMAP 4430 SoC and 1GB of RAM, sells for $249 and competes primarily with Amazon's Kindle Fire and other inexpensive 7" Android-powered tablets.
Source: Barnes & Noble
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KoolAidMan1 - Friday, January 6, 2012 - link
If he was looking for an eReader then he would have bought an e-paper device like the Kindle. If you want all of that other tablet style functionality then an LCD based device is the way to go. OCedHrt's issues with the Nook Color (and the Fire for that matter) are legitimate, the hardware is very slow and the screens are small.KoolAidMan1 - Friday, January 6, 2012 - link
Whoops, I meant kmmatney's issues, obviously :)Caesius - Saturday, January 7, 2012 - link
-=That just means you weren't looking for an eReader to begin with.=-I tend to agree. While I would love an iPad. But an eReader was really what I was looking for. I went with the Tablet types because too often one can get distracted and find oneself needing the net, email, etc. and they provide this on the fly.
I have had 3 other crappy tablet-ish eReaders before the Nook. I returned them all for various reasons. And even though the previous 3 eReaders were 7", like the Nook, I am actually very surprised to discover that only the Nook fits comfortably into one hand. Of course, we are all different sizes and shapes, but for me, it is very easy to hold while reading. Also, even though I frowned in confusion when I first spotted that odd gap in the lower left corner, it has turned out to be a major benefit. I slipped a strap through it, and now when I hold the Nook, I put my hand through that strap. I once dozed off with it in my hand, and it would have crashed to the floor, but instead hung safely from my wrist.
Tedtalker1 - Saturday, January 7, 2012 - link
I waited patiently, for what seemed like an eternity until an e-reader arrived that had theperfect balance of price and performance. I decided on the nook Simple Touch and I will never look back. e-Ink looks great, it's fast and responsive, feels great in the hand and holds a zillion books when you put in a micro SD card. Barnes and Noble's perfect execution gets two thumbs up from me.
rcentros - Thursday, January 12, 2012 - link
Absolutely agree. I hope the color eReaders don't become so popular that no one wants the E-Ink ones anymore. But I disagree that the Nook Color is not a good tablet. We got one for our son this Christmas, bought the N2A Card and he's got either a nice Nook Color eReader OR a full-fledged Android Tablet (it dual boots). As for size, the Nook Color seems too big to be a comfortable to me. I can't even imagine trying to turn a 10" iPad into an eReader.