Well, it seemed like Amazon had finally moved on from its large-format Kindle DX e-reader last fall, but it turns out that was only a brief hiatus. As spotted by The Digital Reader late last month, the circa-2010 device is now available to order once again for $299. Amazon itself isn’t offering much indication as to how long it will remain available this time, though, saying only in a statement that “our website lists the most up to date availability for all products,” and adding that “we’re excited to offer customers this option.”
Stephen King is shunning ebooks in favor of traditional print runs for his new novel, Joyland, the outspoken author has revealed, confirming he has “no plans for a digital version.” King – whose new book is released in the US from June 4, though as a printed title only – specifically retained the digital publication rights so that physical copies could be prioritized.
“Maybe at some point [there’ll be an ebook]” King told the WSJ, “but in the meantime, let people stir their sticks and go to an actual bookstore rather than a digital one.”
The motivation behind King’s decision is not entirely clear, though it’s believed to be more about supporting physical bookstores than antipathy around digital publishing or, indeed, trying to encourage readers to get some exercise. However, the book itself is perhaps more suited in overall tone to real paper.
King has gone with publisher Hard Case Crime, an independent US firm which specializes in pulp-fiction style cover art. The publishing house has previously been responsible for reprints of classic crime novels, though it also printed a previous King novel. “Part of the reason he publishes with us is to support our authors,” owner Charles Ardai said, “but I also think he enjoys the pulp presentation.”
Ironically, King is hardly an ebook luddite. In fact, he was one of the first high-profile authors to embrace the possibility of digital publshing, releasing Riding the Bullet – which King ghost-wrote – back in 2000 as an ebook exclusive.
“I … loved the paperbacks I grew up with as a kid, and for that reason, we’re going to hold off on e-publishing this one for the time being” King said of the decision. “Joyland will be coming out in paperback, and folks who want to read it will have to buy the actual book.”
Looking to save some coin on your tech purchases? Of course you are! In this roundup, we’ll run down a list of the freshest frugal buys, hand-picked with the help of the folks at Slickdeals. You’ll want to act fast, though, as many of these offerings won’t stick around long.
Sure, tablets and cameras discounted on the regular in our twice weekly roundup, but today an A/V system sees the big price drop. A Denon AVR-1613 receiver and Harmon Kardon HKTS 16 speaker bundle is reduced by over 50% with the aid of a simple discount code. All of the particulars, and the rest of the list, await on the other side of the break.
Starting this week, Barnes & Noble NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ devices will be receiving access to the official Google Play app and digital content store straight from the source. Where since the birth of the NOOK line of ereaders, each Android-based device worked specifically and only with the Barnes & Noble Shop for books and movies, users will now have the ability to access both Google apps and Google Music. There’s only one catch – if you’d call it a catch, that is.
The way a user accesses the Google Play digital content store from their NOOK HD or NOOK HD+ device is through a notification which will be appearing on their device starting this week. This notification will have an opt-in option which downloads the Google Play store. With this download comes the full collection of Google services such as Gmail, YouTube, Google+, Google Search, Chrome browser, and Google Maps.
These apps come instantly when you download Google Play, each of them a requirement if you’d like to work with Google Play. Other than these additions, the NOOK experience remains entirely the same. Once you’ve downloaded Google Play and these apps all at once, the first time you tap any of them you’ll be asked to either create or log in to your Google account.
The NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ are the first two devices to be working with Google Play and will likely not be the last. This is the start of a relationship between Barnes & Noble and Google that we’re expecting will send ripples through the ereader industry – or at least send a shock over to Amazon. Have a peek at the NOOK timeline below to see events leading up to this release and let us know if this addition will be pushing you into the NOOK universe.
Barnes & Noble has slashed the prices of its entire NOOK ereader range in the UK, including making its NOOK Simple Touch just £29 ($45), as part of what the company says is a temporary promotion. The discounting, which comes alongside a UK literacy push, means the Simple Touch is now the cheapest ereader on the UK market, B&N claims; its backlit NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight sibling is also reduced.
If you want easier bedtime reading, the backlit model is down from £109 to £69 ($107). The system works well in our experience; our review is here.
Meanwhile, Barnes & Noble’s tablet-ereaders are also discounted. The NOOK HD is priced from £129 ($200), down from £159, for instance – you can find our review of it here – while the NOOK HD+ is priced from £179 ($278), cutting £50 from the previous price.
Multiple retailers should be offering the new prices, though we’re already seeing some stock wobbles in some online stores. Exactly how long the promotion will last is unclear, and whether it will be followed up with an all-new range is questionable.
Is there room in the market still for e-paper ereaders? Kobo says yes, and has the consumer research to prove it and the new model, the Kobo Aura HD, it claims will fit the bill. A survey of 10,000 of the company’s existing users found that 90-percent plan to buy a new, dedicated ereader sometime in the next twelve months, Kobo says; 36-percent apparently have both a tablet and an ereader, and 53-percent use their ereader every day. We caught up with Kobo to take a look.
For that target audience of avid readers, Kobo insists that E Ink remains the way forward for usability. The Aura HD’s panel sees a step up in specifications, however, with a 1440 x 1080 resolution, 6.8-inch Pearl panel, running at 256ppi; it also has front-lighting, as we’ve seen on other recent ereaders from Amazon and B&N, though Kobo claims its system offers the most even illumination. It’s certainly bright and looked consistent across the panel. Inside, there’s WiFi b/g/n though no cellular connectivity, Kobo telling us it still doesn’t believe the hassle of getting 3G/4G hardware certified and the costs of data involved make it worthwhile for its audience.
Kobo is pretty keen to highlight its angular back-panel, though, modeled after a creased sheet of paper. The raised edges give your fingers somewhere to rest, so the theory goes; in practice, it’s certainly not the thinnest way to read an ebook – the iPad mini and Nexus 7 have replaced a standalone ereader for many – but the Aura HD is easy to grip and feels like it could survive a fall from your nightstand. Physical controls are limited to a power button (finished in a contrasting color) and a key for the “ComfortLight” illumination.
Everything else is operated with the touchscreen, which seems reasonably responsive. The Kobo homescreen pulls together your recently read titles – complete with both a percentage of how much is read, and a useful indication of roughly how long it might take you to read the rest, handy if you’re trying to plan ahead for a journey – with recommendations for new books and authors. A tally keeps track of how many books you’ve finished and how long you spent reading them, and you’re prompted to rate completed titles. The Aura HD also supports basic gaming, like chess, with widgets to access your most recent game.
In use, what impresses the most is the clarity of the ereader’s screen. Even at small font levels, there’s no graininess or jagged edges to the text, something Kobo said it achieved not only by virtue of the higher-density display resolution but by going back to first-principles with the fonts and redesigning them pixel-by-pixel to suit the E Ink panel. The screen is also 30-percent larger than other ereaders of a similar scale, and together with the improved readability at small sizes, that means more text on a single page and fewer turns. Fewer turns also adds up to longer battery life, as e-paper displays like the Aura HD’s only use power when they’re changing the content of the display, not maintaining it.
Otherwise, it’s pretty much par for the course for the Aura HD. The onboard 4GB of storage can be expanded by up to 32GB with a microSD card, and there’s a new Freescale i.MX527 processor that, at 1GHz, is apparently 25-percent faster than any rival model out there. We can’t say we noticed a significant uptick in speed, though we also didn’t encounter responsiveness issues.
Kobo has high hopes for the Aura HD, and says there’s still a strong market for ebook-centric devices rather than tablets. In fact, its own ereader sales tripled year-over-year, something the $169.99/€169.99 Aura HD is expected to contribute to. It’s already up for preorder in the US and Europe, and will arrive in US and UK stores come April 25.
The Nook HD+ came out last December to mixed reviews. The device had a great screen but problematic bugs caused laggy performance and low scores. The company has come out with an updated version and we took a look.
The 9-inch Nook HD+ is a Retina-quality tablet with a very simple mission – it wants to replace the iPad in the entry-level tablet market. It runs an acceptably fast 1.5 GHz processor that powers a 1,920×1,280-pixel screen. This means images are exceptionally bright on the device and video is more than acceptable. When we first looked at the HD+ in December on Fly or Die, I gave the HD+ a fly even with its limited functionality at the time and its lack of a camera.
The B&N party line is that this device is updated and I suspect there’s a reason they are running through these with a new round of reviews. Because I didn’t write a formal review when it first came out – I was far more impressed by the Nook HD – so it’s worth revisiting this tablet.
As it stands, the Nook HD+ is primarily a “dumb tablet” with a few smart tablet features. You can run a number of apps and games and view Nook Video alongside other video from providers like Crackle and Ultraviolet. This update also improves the speaker (it’s still mono) and improves performance.
Sadly, the quirks that plagued the original HD+ are present here. When turning on the device, for example, you see a brief “scrambled” picture that suggests a problem with either the backlight or the LCD. This “fuzz” appears sometimes while moving through apps and screens but it doesn’t show itself when you’re reading a book.
In terms of absolute performance the Nook suggests solidity but not pep. Switching between screens, at least while reading, is acceptably fast and much faster than it was in the initial launch. As for general app performance I saw a bit of an improvement over the previous software iteration but nothing to write home about. The HD+ is awful in direct sunlight, so don’t even think about going outside with it. This is an indoor ereader.
I think, sadly, the 9-inch tablet market has been flattened by the phablets and 7-inchers of the world. That said, the form factor is still good for folks looking for more screen real estate or larger fonts. For those customers, the HD+ excels. It is almost half a pound lighter than the iPad and even lighter than the Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch. At $269 it’s priced just about right and, for a brief period, you could get a Nook Simple Touch for free with purchase. That promotion is over but you do get a $50 credit from Barnes & Noble for books and content.
So here’s what worries me: the ereader world has been stagnant since the holidays and the two-for-one deal, while generous, didn’t seem to bode well for B&N. This very slightly updated HD+ is a solid piece of hardware but it’s still not quite up to, say, the standards of similarly outfitted – but not similarly priced – Android tablets. The Nexus 10, is $100 more than the HD+ and, by all metrics, a better device. The iPad with Retina display is a bit more expensive, to be sure, and may not be exactly the device the novice, ereading user is looking for. However, the performance and build quality is far superior.
So who should get an HD+? I think folks who love to read on bigger screens. While there is a plethora of video content available, that’s not the draw here. The three main draws are, in order, price, price, and price. If you’re already a Nook user and you’re looking for a bigger reader, this may be the model for you. If you’re looking for a real tablet, you may need to look elsewhere.
The Association of American Publishers has published its 2012 revenue data, which shows that ebooks have grown steadily over the last decade and now represent nearly a quarter of US publishers’ sales at 22.55-percent. The industry saw a fairly large rise in revenue of 6-percent last year over 2011, and while the substantial number of ebook revenue has shown a steady increase in electronic books, there’s an indication that 2013 could see a slowing.
When the first ebook reader was launched, propelling ebooks into the mainstream, the publishing world, writers, and readers became quite polarized, with some stating that it was the salvation of the publishing industry and others decrying it as the last nail in its coffin. Regardless, ebook readers proved very popular, transforming from slow-functioning e-ink slates to Android tablets with relevant ebook reading apps.
This is easily seen in the numbers published by the AAP, which has 2002 trade publishers’ ebook revenue representing 0.05-percent of its overall net revenue. This rose to 0.50-percent in 2006, and to 1.18-percent in 2008. The large rise started in 2009 at 3.17-percent, reaching 16.98-percent in 2011, and finally 22.55-percent last year. As the TNW points out, this works out to a growth of 2.25-percent per year.
When breaking ebook sales in 2012 down by month, however, the numbers show that December was its lowest, indicating that 2013 could be a slower year for ebook sales than last year. Regardless, the overall numbers keep climbing steadily, and we’re sure to see 2013 be the year that trade publishers see ebook sales account for a quarter – or more – of their total net revenue.
Barnes & Noble has a deal for those looking to get a new ereader. Those who buy a Nook HD+ device starting tomorrow until the end of the month (March 31) will get a Nook Simple Touch for free. This is the latest promotion from a company that has had pretty regular specials and deals, including some earlier this month.
While both Nooks are ereaders, they’re vastly different from each other, with the Nook HD+ being a full tablet complete with access to apps and a 1080p display, while the Nook Simple Touch is your traditional ereader – e-ink display, small screen, and long battery life. The Nook HD+ costs $269 for the 16GB (cheapest) option, and increases to $299 for the 32GB model. The Nook Simple Touch, meanwhile, costs $79 new, but will be free with the tablet.
The Nook HD+ has a 9-inch display with full HD resolution, and boasts being lightweight at a little over 18-ounces. The device can be used to watch video, use apps and Nook Channels, all of it via a 1.5GHz dual-core processor. The Nook Simple Touch, on the other hand, has a 6-inch e-ink display and a battery life of 2 months per charge. The e-ink display is a touchscreen, and is designed to be readable in sunlight.
NOOK Media’s President of Digital Products Jamie Iannone said, “By offering a free NOOK Simple Touch with the purchase of NOOK HD+, customers can fully experience all that the expansive NOOK Store of more than 3 million titles has to offer. NOOK HD+ … is perfect for experiencing movies, apps, magazines and more, while NOOK Simple Touch is ideal for reading millions of books.”
The IDC recently had to adjust its numbers for its 2013 forecasted market share. It didn’t expect there to be so many low-cost budget Android tablets to be announced this year, like the HP Slate that goes for $169. The IDC has increased its 2013 forecast for the tablet market from 172.4 million units shipped worldwide to 190.9 million. It also believes that tablet shipments will see an 11% increase annually between 2013 and 2016.
The IDC believes that Android tablets will claim the top spot in the tablet market with a 48.8% market share. iPads will drop down to second place with a 46% market share, and Windows-based tablets will have a combined total of a 4.7% market share. In the future, the market share for both Android tablets and iPads will decrease as Windows-based tablets gain more momentum in the market. All in all, there should be a combined total of 350 million tablets shipped by the end of 2017.
Jitesh Ubrani, an analyst for IDC’s Tablet Tracker, states that “One in every two tablets shipped this quarter was below 8 inches in screen size. And in terms of shipments, we expect smaller tablets to continue growing in 2013 and beyond.” Manufacturers are seeing a trend in smaller tablets outselling the more larger 10-inch tablets. The smaller tablets are much easier to carry around and to use when performing daily tasks.
The IDC believes that the low-budget Android tablets are the main reason for Android’s success in the tablet market. Consumers don’t want to spend $500 on a high-end premium Android tablet or iPad when there is a $150-$200 tablet, like the Kindle Fire, that can give them everything they need. Low-cost Android tablets are also hurting the sales of eReaders, which have seen a decline year-over-year due to the more efficient, tablets. The IDC has reduced its forecasted shipments of eReaders by 14% from the years 2013 to 2016.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
