The first official images of the Barnes And Noble’s E-Book reader have turned up and it looks mostly like the Amazon Kindle with one very important exception. The device houses two separate screens on the body. One is the usual e-Ink screen that is found in the Kindle. The other is a touchscreen like the one found on the iPhone.
This secondary screen effectively acts as a mini navigation area where the user can view books and other settings in full color. The surface also has a full virtual keyboard that will enable the user to search through the device and the text. This is probably the main feature that sets apart the Barnes And Noble’s device from the many other similar devices and most importantly, from the Amazon Kindle.
There is no doubt about the fact that dear old B&N are late to the whole e-book reader party but the party itself has only just begun. With more texts being turned into digital texts, the market for this sort of a device is ever expanding and let’s not forget the fact that B&N does have a publishing empire to leverage the device with. With tablets and readers from Asus, Apple and Microsoft on the way, they are actually making good time. B&N are likely to make their own publications available exclusively to their own device for those who want to carry them in a digital format. Not only that, it seems like the device has a way to connect to the all the books that have been digitized by the Google Books Project.
The secondary screen on the device is powered by Google’s mobile OS Android. This may be taken as a sign of an alliance with Google but then again, too many manufacturers are using the Android OS on their myriad devices.
So more details on the capabilities of the device will have to be waited upon till the official release happens next week on the 20th of October. They have done well to have scheduled it one day before the Windows 7 release date.
Technology news blog Gizmodo has gotten the exclusive scoop on this device and it is through them that we get to know that this device has actually been under development for several years now. So Android probably came in to the equation later in to the development phase.
There was a lot of speculation about the deployment of Android on the device. Now it is much clearer as to why an e-book reader would need something like the Android OS. The secondary touchscreen needed something as sophisticated as the Android to provide advanced functionality to the user. Without an OS, this intelligent addition to the device would’ve been rendered completely useless.
It is clear from the images that the secondary screen not only provides you with a visual display of the titles on the device in full color but it also has a full keypad that can be used to input text wherever necessary. Those who have used the first Kindle or have followed its development will know how easy it is botch up the keypad and render it extremely difficult and frustrating to use. So this move from B&N is surely welcome. The little reading light on top is also nice, since the e-ink screen in not backlit.
This is a promising device with intelligent design and features that sets it apart from similar products in the market. Whether it will survive in the market, we will know soon enough. The success of any such device depends one exactly one thing – content. Things such as user-friendliness and design come in as secondary to the presence of useful and lucrative content for the device. It is understandable though that B&N are hoping to use their primary business to feed exclusive content to device owners. It is also possible that B&N’s own publications will be available exclusively to the device and at large discounts too.
