The Kindle Fire is about to get some major competition and as early as November 7th. The Digital Reader, pretty much the best source online for ebook news, has several sources indicating that B&N will have a large announcement on November 7th. The next Nook Color is expected to headline the show.
The Nook Color set the standard late last year for enhanced ereaders. By using a color LCD screen and a highly curated Android release, the Nook Color was an instant hit and was no doubt the template for Amazon’s Kindle Fire. But Barnes & Noble isn’t just going to roll over and let the Fire steal the market it created. Enter the next-gen Nook Color.
Expect the Nook Color 2 to go toe-to-toe with the Kindle Fire. It will likely carry the same $200 price and similar internal specs. But B&N isn’t Amazon and hasn’t built a massive Android ecosystem. Where Amazon can serve everything from books to movies to cloud storage on its devices, Barnes & Noble is stuck hawking just books and housewares. But B&N might be fine as long as they can sneak Netflix and the entire Google Apps suite onto their tablet. Plus, it needs to be as hacker friendly as the original.
It was previously rumored that the new Nook Color would launch in September but that fell through. Another older rumor also states that there will be two new Nooks coming this quarter. November 7th might turn out to be a big day in the ereader world.