If you’ll allow us to do a little dot-connecting and hand-waving here, we think we may have just stumbled across a new version of Barnes and Noble’s Nook that drops the GSM connection and soldiers on with WiFi alone, matching up nicely with a rumor that spread across the webs not long ago. You see, the Nook’s FCC ID is BNRZ100, and this thing that we just found in the FCC’s filing system under Barnes and Noble’s name has an ID of BNRV100 — and the test reports are very explicit about the fact that this is for “EBOOK, WLAN, AND USB PORTS WITHOUT WWAN.” WWAN, of course, is a fancy way of referring to a cellular connection, so that’s that. If this thing can sell for, say, $100 less than the Nook’s $260 — a price that puts it out of reach of the average person’s impulse purchase limit — we could see some significant new uptake of the platform, we’d wager. No word on a release, but we’ll keep our ears to the ground.
The era of the color e-book reader is upon us. Granted, it was rather forcefully nudged along by the Apple iPad, but the Pandigital e-reader seems likely to be yet another nail in the coffin of the current crop of black-and-white readers, such as the Amazon Kindle in its various iterations.
Pandigital today announced that it has extended beyond its digital photo-frame roots with the release of the Novel eReader, a $199 e-book reader with a 7-inch TFT LCD color touchscreen display. The device features access to Barnes & Noble’s eBookstore and the company’s LendMe technology, which lets users share e-books with friends.
The Novel has 800-by-600 resolution, Wi-Fi, a mini-USB port, a SD/MMC slot, and 1GB of built-in memory. It can read a number of file formats, including PDF, ePub, and HTML.
Barnes & Noble on Monday confirmed that its Nook e-reader will be available at Best Buy starting April 18. Best Buy will also feature Barnes & Noble’s e-reader software on select laptops and desktops, netbooks, tablets, and smartphones.
The Nook will retail for $259.99 at Best Buy stores and online at bestbuy.com. The e-reader, which was introduced in October and started selling in February, will continue to be sold at Barnes & Noble stores and on the book seller’s Web site, as well.
Barnes & Noble said Best Buy will also sell Nook accessories. The Best Buy Web site currently lists an AC adapter and USB cable kit for $14.99 and a battery for $29.99.
“To date, we’ve limited Nook distribution to Barnes & Noble retail and online stores and the customer response to our e-book reader has exceeded our expectations,” Kevin Frain, executive vice president of e-commerce at Barnes & Noble, said in a statement. “We have enormous respect for the Best Buy organization, [and] through this partnership, Best Buy customers will now have new and easy ways to access our expansive digital library on a variety of computing and mobile devices.”
With all of the Nookchatter going down at Best Buy lately, it was bound to become official sooner or later: as of this morning Reuters is reporting that the retailer will start carrying Barnes and Noble’s e-reader beginning, as previously reported, on April 18. We just hope you can contain your excitement until then — we know we’ll be doing our best.
Update: We just got our hands on the PR, and here is a little more detail: Not only will the Nook and B&N eBook giftcards be available at Best Buy locations and in its online store, the Geek Squad is also apparently hard at work installing the Nook eReader software on “select PCs, netbooks, tablets and smartphones” sold in its stores. The device is set to retail for $260. Peep the PR for yourself after the break.
Need a bit more evidence that the e-book download business is a whole lot different than the music download business? Then look no further than Barnes & Noble, which has just announced that it plans to make its B&N eReader app available for the Apple iPad “around the time” of the device’s launch. Details are otherwise a bit light, but the app will be free, and is apparently “designed specifically” for the iPad, giving you access to all of the books, magazines and newspapers available in Barnes & Noble’s eBookstore. Could a Kindle app be far behind?
“We use the epub format: It is the most popular open book format in the world.” That’s how Steve Jobs announced the iPad. And wow, that sounds like all the ebooks you own will just work on anything. Um, no.
The idea of an open ebook format that works on any reader sounds nice. Buy it from any source, read it on any device. In a few cases, it’s true, and that open format thing can work for you. But, in reality, right now? You’re pretty much going to be stuck reading books you buy for one device or ecosystem in that same little puddle, thanks to DRM. And well, Amazon.
The Hardware
Okay, so the easiest way to put this in perspective is to quickly list what formats the major ebook readers support. (Why these four? Well, they’re the ones due to sell over 2 million units this year, except for Barnes & Noble‘s, which we’re including as a direct contrast to Kindle just because.)
• Amazon Kindle: Kindle (AZW, TPZ), TXT, MOBI, PRC and PDF natively; HTML and DOC through conversion • Apple iPad: EPUB, PDF, HTML, DOC (plus iPad Apps, which could include Kindle and Barnes & Noble readers) • Barnes & Noble Nook: EPUB, PDB, PDF • Sony Reader: EPUB, PDF, TXT, RTF; DOC through conversion
You’ll notice a pattern there: Everybody (except for Amazon) supports EPUB as their primary ebook format. Turns out, there’s a good reason for that.
EPUB, the MP3 of Book Publishing
The reason just about every ebook uses EPUB is because the vast majority of the publishing industry has decided that EPUB is the industry standard file format for ebooks. It’s a free and open standard, based on open specifications. The successor to Open eBook, it’s maintained by the International Digital Publishing Forum, which has a pretty lengthy list of members, both of the dead-tree persuasion (HarperCollins and McGraw Hill) and of the technological kind (Adobe and HP). Google’s million-book library is all in EPUB too.
It’s based on XML—extensible markup language—which you see all over the place, from RSS to Microsoft Office, ’cause it lays out rules for storing information. And it’s actually made up of a three open components: Open Publication Structure basically is about the formatting, how it looks; Open Packaging Format is how it’s tied together using navigation and metadata; and Open Container Format is a zip-based container format for the file, where you get the .epub file extension. When you toss those three components together, you have the EPUB ebook format.
While we’ve only see EPUB on black-and-white e-ink-based readers so far, like Sony’s Readers or the B&N Nook, the capabilities of the file format go way “beyond those types of things,” says Nick Bogaty, Adobe’s senior development manager for digital publishing. Unlike PDF, which is a fixed page, EPUB provides reflowable text, a page layout that can adjust itself to a device’s screen-size. With EPUB, content producers can use cascading style sheets, embedded fonts, and yes, embed multimedia files like color images, SVG graphics, interactive elements, even full video—the kind of stuff Steve promised in the iPad keynote. So, we haven’t seen the full extent of EPUB’s capabilities, and won’t, until at least April 3 and presumably much later. Even if the books you buy from Apple iBook store worked on other devices—and as you will soon see, there’s little chance of that—don’t count on the coolest stuff, like video, to be somehow compatible with current-generation black-and-white e-ink readers.
D-D-D-DRM!
But let’s not get too excited seeing the words “free” and “open” so much in conjunction with EPUB. It’s like MP3 or AAC, and not only because it’s become a semi-universal industry standard. Make no mistake, these files can be totally unencrypted and unmanaged, or they can be wrapped up in any kind of digital rights management a distributor wants.
So far, according to Bogaty, the DRM every EPUB distributor currently uses is Adobe Content Server, which conveniently also wraps around PDF files. Sony and Barnes & Noble both use it on their readers, though since Adobe’s DRM doesn’t allow for sharing books between accounts, B&N actually uses a slightly custom version, and manages the Nook’s lending feature using their own backend. (Adobe is working on a sharing provision.) It does, however, support expiration, which is how Sony’s vaunted library lending feature works.
The plus side of all this compatability that it’s actually possible to move files from a Sony Reader to a Nook, using Adobe Digital Editions to authorize the transfer. (Though according to some reviewers, that would be like moving pelts from a dead horse to a rotting bear.)
Apple, on the other hand, chose EPUB as the preferred file format, but will be wrapping DRM’d files from its iBooks Store in the FairPlay DRM, which is used to protect movies and apps (and formerly music) in the iTunes Store. As always, expect them to be the only company using it.
(There’s a precursor to EPUB’s dilemma: Audible downloads. You can buy Audible audiobooks from an enormous number of sources, but the ones you buy from iTunes aren’t going to play on any other Audible-capable device, no matter how many logos they slap on the box.)
You may be thinking that it’s just a matter of time before ebook stores all go DRM free. That would be wishful thinking at best. While ebooks might seem a lot like digital music circa 2005, you can’t rip a book, so the only way to get a bestseller on your reader is to buy it legally, or to steal it. It’s pretty much that simple. There will be free books, there will be unencrypted books, and the torrents will rage with bestsellers (as they already do). Still, DRM’s gonna be a hard fact of life with every major bookstore, since they’re going to at least try to keep you from stealing it. You don’t see Hollywood giving up DRM, do you?
Kindle, Barnes & Noble, and How The Dead PDA Business Affects the Live Ebook War
Did you know that Amazon owns Mobipocket, which mainly targeted ebooks for PDAs and smartphones, and had its own file format that with roots in the PalmDOC format? The Mobipocket format, consequently, has two extensions: .mobi and .prc. I bring it up, not because you should care about Mobipocket—you really shouldn’t—but because the Kindle’s preferred AZW format is actually a very slightly modified version of MOBI, which is why it’s easy to convert files from one format to the other. Unprotected AZW files can be renamed to the MOBI or PRC format and simply work with MobiPocket readers.
The problem with Mobipocket is that it’s not a very capable format, since it was originally designed for ancient-ass PDAs and all. So there’s another special Amazon format that’s a little more mysterious, called Topaz, which is more capable than MOBI, with powers like the ability to have embedded fonts. It’s used for fewer books, and carries the file suffix .tpz or .azw1. For what it’s worth, some people complain books in the Topaz format are less responsive than the standard AZW files. In truth, none of this may matter if and when the Super Kindle arrives.
In terms of DRM, Amazon uses its own DRM on both formats. Both have been cracked, though it apparently took longer with Topaz. This may be good news for pirates, but matters not at all from a cross-platform point of view, since that format is completely proprietary, and nothing but the Kindle or Kindle software will read it anyway.
But the old PDA legacy crap doesn’t stop with Amazon. Palm once owned its own ebook platform, which it sold to a company who called it eReader. Eventually, the format and the software platform came to be owned by Barnes & Noble. I’m only dragging you into this because Barnes & Noble actually still sells many books in this format, even while they transition to the more popular and “open” EPUB format. You can spot an eReader format because the file ends in .pdb—but you only see that after you bought the damn thing. That is to say, even if you care enough about formats to go with the reader that supports the one you like, you still might get stuck with a limited, if not completely proprietary, stack of books.
PDF, I Still Love You
In comparison to EPUB, PDF is simple. Developed over 15 years ago by Adobe, the portable document format has been an open standard since 2008. You’re probably pretty damn familiar with it, but the main thing about it versus these other formats is that everything is fixed—fonts, graphics, text, etc.—so it looks the same everywhere, versus the reflowable format that adjusts to the screen size. Hence, Amazon offers PDF without zoom on its Kindle DX, which has the screen real estate to (usually) not muck it up too much. With smaller screens than the PDF’s native size, it requires some pan-and-zoom voodoo, and it still usually looks pretty disgusting.
Zoom issues notwithstanding, having a fixed format has advantages. For instance, a lot of “electronic newspapers” were transmitted via PDF back in the day, because it retained their design. It’s really nice for comics. (Consequently, you can bet scanned-comic piracy to explode when the iPad arrives, unless Marvel and DC come up with killer strategies to get their comics on a device that’s clearly begging for it.) Wikipedia covers a lot of the technical ground, surprisingly thoroughly, even if the usual Wiki caveats apply. As mentioned above, it can be protected with Adobe Content Server DRM, just like EPUB.
The Great Shiny Hope: Apps
The other path for digital publishers: Build an app to hold your books and magazines. This is the route magazines are taking, because they’re envisioning some fancy digital jujitsu. With Adobe AIR, which is what Wired and the NYT are using in various incarnations for their respective rags, they’re able to do more advanced layouts, more rich multimedia, Flash craziness, and other designer bling that EPUB can’t handle, says Adobe’s Bogarty. Also, importantly you can dynamically update content, like when new issues arrive, which you can’t really do with EPUB.
Interestingly, the publisher Penguin is alsotaking the app route for their books, building apps using web technologies like HTML5 for the iPad, so their books are in fact, way more like games and applications than mere books. So it’s another tack publishers could take.
But the app business can help with the openness of the big ebook file formats, too. Many people read Amazon’s proprietary formats on their iPhone, because Amazon wants to sell books, and Apple wants people to use apps. Barnes & Noble has a reader app, too; while not great, it at least somewhat helps get over the PDB/EPUB confusion. It’s pretty likely that these and many other ebook apps will turn up on the iPad, unless Jobs decides that they “duplicate” his “functionality.” Since iBooks itself is an app you have to download, it probably won’t be an issue. Here’s hoping.
The Upshot
The idea of an open ebook format that works on any reader sounds really nice. And in some cases, if you pay really really close attention, it’s true. That open format thing actually can work for you. But the reality? You’re pretty much going to be stuck with the books you buy in one device working only in that same ecosystem, or at least hoping and praying for an assortment of proprietary reader apps to appear on all your devices. Now, where’d I put that copy of Infinite Jest? Was it in my Kindle library, my B&N library or my iBooks library?
Still something you wanna know? Send questions about ebooks, bookies or horse heads here with “Giz Explains” in the subject line.
We know that some of you chaps are still waiting for your Barnes & Noble Nook to arrive, but by now, we’re hoping that the vast majority (read: all) of you that were jonesing for one can finally say that yours is in-hand. For those that got one during the madness that is the holiday rush (or yesterday… that works too), we’re interested to know how you’d do things differently. Are you kosher with the dual-screen approach? Is the user interface smooth enough? Would you tweak the e-book buying process? Do you wish you would’ve held off for some magical Mirasol-based device to hit “later this year?” Be sure to toss out your opinions in comments below, but make sure you think before you type — the Nook sees and hears all, don’tcha know?
Keeping up a fine tradition, Barnes & Noble has today let slip an internal memo that discusses a forthcoming version 1.2 firmware update for the Nook. There’s not much in the way of info on fresh new features or optimizations, but we do know that B&N retail locations will be getting the update “this week” alongside new units shipping with v1.2 preloaded onto them. We’re also told that the update would be an effortless side-loading affair via USB, but the bit about “prior to the software being released to customers” suggests that perhaps we won’t all be riding the latest software by this weekend. Let’s just be patient and do what we usually do: fantasize about what the future may hold.
Update: Turns out B&N will be rolling out an OTA update to customers in a few days, but the manual download is all ready for collection from right here. You’ll find the full list of changes after the break
Look, we know we give Colorware a hard time — mostly because it regularly spits out miscast creations like the abominable Kindle or the unlovable DSi — but in the case of the Nook we’re a lot more ambivalent. Sure, on the one hand you can concoct clashing color schemes like the one above that only someone from Portugal can truly appreciate, but if you slide past the break you’ll find tasteful color combos are possible as well. Perhaps it’s the Nook’s simple logo on the back and straight-line color separation, but this is one instance where we might actually be willing to shell out the $125 asking price for a fresh paintjob. Hit the source link to try your hand at designing a prettier Nook yourself.
There are too damn many ebook readers and it’s tough to figure out what’s worth buying and which reader will even survive the market. To make things easy, here’s our guide to the readers that matter—for now. Updated.
Of course we’re skipping some of the many ebook readers floating around, but quite frankly we can’t really stomach all of them. We decided to focus on the ones that matter to us—whether because they stand a shot of surviving the over-saturated market, or simply because they are examples of what we think matters about these gadgets. Feel free to let us know if you disagree with any of our survival odds or if you think we missed a significant device.
When we reviewed the Barnes & Noble Nook, we decided that it was pretty damn good all around. At the time, we mainly focused on pitting it against the Amazon Kindle, but even without that limited comparison the Nook remains a rather good device:
It’s got a second screen which actually serves a useful purpose
Expansion and evolution possibilities of this very device are great, especially with touchscreen and Android OS
Lending and in-store Barnes & Noble action will be huge
Native ePub support
A little thicker than Kindle, but as a tradeoff, it’s a little smaller footprint
Wi-Fi doesn’t seem to matter now—hopefully it will prove to be an advantage later
LCD and other features mean less battery life than Kindle, but still adequate, “measured in days”
Current software is buggy and sluggish in spots; hopefully fixes and optimization will come soon
Second-screen possibilities are great, but current implementation is cautious and conservative
Taking all those features and shortcomings into account, we think that the Nook’s survival chance is 80%— if it can fix its firmware and get production up to speed.
A hands on of the Entourage Edge left us hesitant about whether there’s actually a market for something that has the price tag of a good netbook and barely more features than most readers:
It does have two full screens on which actual work can be done
Can run Android applications and be used to browse the web
Wi-Fi built-in, so you’re not stuck relying on 3G
Two built-in microphones for noise-cancelation, but unfortunately no synchronization with notes
Note taking can be done using a stylus
Switching between the screens allows for websites to be loaded on one screen and “pushed” to the other
Just as with most other readers, you can highlight, annotate, and bookmark
It’s three whole freakin’ pounds and ridiculously bulky
$500 price tag.
The Edge shows us what happens when you try to make a reader into what it’s not—a pseudo netbook or tablet. We think the device’s survival chance is 0% and consider it pretty much DOA.
We liked the feel of the Plastic Logic Que when we got our hands on it, but we didn’t like the price tag. The device is mainly aimed at business folk who want to carry a notepad-sized device instead of a stack of documents, but it could make a rather nice reader if you crave for a large screen:
At 8.5 x 11 x .33 inches, its about the size and thickness of a standard notepad. It weighs about one pound. Like a heavy notepad.
The screen is huge—and I mean huge. Over ten inches.
Because of Plastic Logic’s obsession with its namesake material, the Que is light as a feather
Formatting from magazines and other publications is maintained on the screen
The interface seems snappy and intuitive
Que Mail and Que Calendar services allow email and calendar updates to be pushed over WiFi and 3G networks
While odd to look at, the wide bezel actually makes the Que a lot more comfortable to hold than some other readers
The back of the device is a magnet for fingerprints. It’s annoying, but not unusual for shiny toys like this.
$650 for the 4GB model with Wi-FI and $800 for the 8GB model with WiFi and 3G are quite the prices to swallow
We think the Que’s features, design, and business as well as consumer appeal leave it with a survival chance of 70%—higher if businesses feel like spending so much on a device that will certainly help cut back on paper use. Or if Plastic Logic manages to cut back on that price.
Our hands on of the Spring Design Alex Reader left us thinking that the Nook might have some serious competition, but even on its own the Alex is a rather good device:
It’s thin—we thought we’d break it just by holding it—but it turned out to be surprisingly sturdy
You can run any Android app including the browser, email client, and music player apps
The interaction between the two screens doesn’t seem fully worked out
No news about whether there’s a data provider secured for the device
$399 makes the Alex a wee bit pricier than the nook
Assuming that a data provider is secured for the Alex, we could see its survival chance being 80%—higher if there’s a price drop to bring it closer to the Nook’s.
When the Sony Daily Edition reader was announced, we got a bit excited about its electronic library program and wide screen, but alas, we’re still waiting to actually get one of these devices into our hands to check out all the features:
Sony’s got plenty of partners for this device to provide content
The on-screen content is rotated automatically to allow viewing in a nice, comfortable, and super wide landscape format
Native EPUB support
The electronic library program will let you borrow books from your local library’s electronic collection
Free 3G service is included—but limited to accessing the Sony Store
$399 is a bit much for a device with so few tricks up its sleeve
Until we actually take a Daily for a test run, we’re deeming its survival chance as 40%—mostly because the library program is appealing along with the push for EPUB formatting.
Kindle
In our review of the Amazon Kindle 2, we discovered that it’s not too different from the original model, but we still liked all the features:
The rounded design makes the device appealing to hold and look at
Zippy interface, decent refresh rate
Plenty of internal storage and long battery life
Text-to-speech book reading
Crisp, sharp display
It’s hard to read longer, more complex books
While the Kindle 2 wasn’t a huge leap from the first generation, we still think the device about a 80% chance of survival, especially if Amazon works on improving the interface and how the device treats flipping through book sections.
When we got our hands on the Notion Ink Adam Pixel Qi, we discovered that it’s more of a tablet than it is a reader and that it tries too hard to be both:
The device runs on Android 2.0
There’s a snappy Nvidia Tegra 2 processor lurking inside
10.1-inch panel that can switch between backlit LCD mode and low-power electrophoretic reflective mode
3G service, which is becoming fairly standard among readers
LCD colors aren’t as vivid as a plain LCD
Despite having “ink” in its name, the Adam falls too far into tablet territory for us to take it seriously as a reader so we give it a 40% chance of survival in that particular market. As a tablet device though, it might actually do rather well.
Skiff Reader
When we got a hands on with the Skiff, we were pretty impressed by its size but uncertain about most features since we didn’t get to play with a final production model:
It’s big and thin: 11.5 inches of touchscreen space on a device only a quarter of an inch thick
Light and—quite importantly—solid feeling
Layout mimicks a real newspaper better than most readers
Can handle 12fps animation, which is pretty primitive compared to an LCD device
Reasoably responsive to taps and swipes
You can highlight and annotate content
Magazines feel awkward to read as they’re full page scans and any zooming feels slow due to the e-ink refresh rate
Once again: The Skiff unit we tried out was not a final version, so plenty can change by the time it hits shelves. But based on what we’ve seen so far, this could be a pretty great reader overall—despite its key focus being periodicals. Assuming that it’s price turns out to be reasonable and the interface is fixed up a bit more, we give it a survival chance of 70%.
Any Others?
Those are the ebook readers we think deserve some discussion right now. There are plenty we left out—super cheap ones, poor imitations of readers mentioned already, and some that just plain make us gag. We didn’t want to promote crappy products or those where “you get what you pay for” rings a bit too true. That disclaimer aside, we welcome discussion and mentions of other readers, simply because it’s always possible that we omitted something worthwhile—like the Skiff which has now been added—by accident. So let’s hear it in the comments.
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.
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“We use the epub format: It is the most popular open book format in the world.” That’s how Steve Jobs announced the iPad. And wow, that sounds like all the ebooks you own will just work on anything. Um, no.
It’s got a second screen which actually serves a useful purpose
A little thicker than Kindle, but as a tradeoff, it’s a little smaller footprint
Current software is buggy and sluggish in spots; hopefully fixes and optimization will come soon
