Revealing its own thinner and lighter hi-definition tablets that can support multiple users in a bid to win a greater share of the bursting tablet market, Barnes & Noble Inc grab an opportunity at archrival Amazon.com on Wednesday. Similar with Apple Inc’s market-leading iPad size that has 32 GB of memory, the largest U.S. bookstore chain announced the new devices with price tags ranging from $199 for a 7-inch Nook HD tablet that has 8GB memory to 9-inch Nook HD+ tablet for $299. For similar devices, iPad prices are obviously twice with other devices.
The latest Nook are the most recent entries in the battle for sales of tablets, e-readers and digital content like books, magazines and movies that push them. As the firm faces a total industry wide drop in the sales of physical books, Barnes & Noble have pledged its future on its digital business. Sarah Rotman Epps, the Forrester Research analyst said that a key development area is to get their prevailing customer base through digital platform, the latest device was opposing with the same products by Amazon in terms of pricing and features.
Barnes & noble encounters terrible competition from Amazon that can use its Prime shipping service and amazon.com site to captivate the users, and the iPad that has sold in the tens of millions of units. To maintain its posture, Barnes & Noble combined innovative features that would let each a family to share a Nook tablet, with each user capable to customized preference and create a home page, and it was the first table to do so. It has also a parental control that can restraint kids from reading Fifty Shades of Grey or go shopping on the digital market.
Restraining the gap with Apple and Amazon that offer more content on their gadgets, the firm is also promoting a new video-streaming and download service for Nook. The firm has highlighted its features like the image resolution and page-turning technology administer the needs of its basic customers, magazine and book readers said by an official. William Lynch, Barnes & Noble Chief Executive said that they are playing in the tablet space but reading is at their main idea.
The 7-inch tablet scales 11.1 ounces, its larger kin is 18.2 ounces, creating it lighter over the iPad and making them both more suitable for reading, the iPad weighs 23 ounces. In 2009, the major U.S. bookstore chain announced its first Nook device, a basic reader and has possessed its own with deep-pocketed rivals Google Inc, Apple and Amazon. As much as 30 percent of the U.S. electronic-book market garnered because of its success.
On Wednesday, Barnes & Noble’s latest devices are available for pre-order and will ship in October and in November, it will release in the U.S. stores. Starting in late November, it will be on sale in Britain at chains including Waitrose and Sainsbury’s. In the technology industry, the tablet market is at the fastest-growing sectors, according to Gartner, a research firm that the sales will double this year that will reach 118.9 million units. The firm is now creating HD tablets sufficient to meet the strong demands of their customers.
REFERENCES:
http://gadgets.ndtv.com/tablets/news/barnes-noble-launches-nook-hd-hd-tablets-to-take-on-amazon-apple-272229
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/barnes-noble-takes-aims-amazon-apple-hd-nook-050306151.html
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/09/26/barnes-and-nobles-nook-hd-hd-coming-after-amazon-this-october
http://www.bgr.com/2012/09/26/nook-hd-release-date-hands-on/
