There IS one kind of tablet people want besides an iPad, as proved by sales numbers:
The Color Nook
According to various recent reports, Apple has about 10% share in ebook sales, Barnes and Noble 25%, and Kindle over 60%.
Don't know the latest sales figures, but as of March 28, 2011, 3 million Color Nooks were shipped, according to Digitimes:
Barnes & Noble already takes delivery of 3 million Nook Color e-book readers, say sources
Yenting Chen, Taipei; Steve Shen, DIGITIMES [Monday 28 March 2011]
Barnes & Noble has taken delivery of close to three million Nook Color e-book readers from its production partner, according to an estimate by sources from the Nook Color supply chain.
With a clear differentiation to Apple's iPads in display size, targeted market and pricing, the Nook Color, priced at US$249, has actually taken up over 50% of the iPad-like market in the North America market, indicated the sources.
Sales of the Nook Color topped one million units in the North America in the fourth quarter of 2010 and reached 600,000-700,000 units a month during the January-February period of 2011, the sources noted.
Barnes & Noble outsources the production of the Nook Color e-book readers to Inventec, noted the sources, adding that Inventec has landed tablet PC orders from Hewlett-Packard (HP).
The Nook Color has drastically blurred the line between eReaders and tablets since it is, well, basically really just a tablet.
FWIW, the Optimus line of phones from LG is doing the same in the featurephone/smartphone market (priced like a feature phone, but with all the power and features of a 1 year old top of the line smartphone).
I've got an original Nook that I like, the eInk is great for readability, I was initially hesitant as to what to think about the Nook Color since it loses the readability advantage over traditional tablets. So now that B&N is opening up the Nook Color with an SDK I'm a little more excited about it. But what I'm really curious about is, does B&N make a profit off the hardware sales or is it a loss leader for ebook sales (is it the razor or the blade)? If B&N makes money on the hardware it will have a nice new revenue stream as ebooks gradually supplant traditional print books, but if they take a loss on each unit hoping to recoup via ebook sales the platform may not have a long lifespan if they discontinue it due to everybody rooting the thing for a cheap Honeycomb tablet with no more vendor lock in.
I actually know more people with Nooks than with Kindles. Most of them have color Nooks and most use them to read books and boot into Android to get a cheap, color, wifi-enabled tablet.
I rooted the Nook Color and it is terrific. Great use as a ebook reader and general tablet. It seems to strike a very good balance between a pure ebook reader like the kindle and the iPad. We have kindle, nook color and the iPad at home. The iPad is useless for holding and reading more than 20 mins. My wife can't pick it up for more than 5 mins. The Nook Color is lighter than the iPad but more functional (browser, apps, zoom in/out) than the kindle. Downsides are -- rooted it is still android 2.1. Moving to 2.2 or 2.3 is not easy (I believe moving to 2.2 required turning off the heat sensor!!). Honeycomb kinda runs in a debug mode (ie., very slow). If the community can create a painless way to move this to android 2.3 it will be a great win.
As to the economics, B&N owns the retail distribution of this product. So a big win over other android tablets is that it doesn't need to tack in another 30-40% markup for retail stores. Apple makes at least 30% on the iPad and the iPad is bigger with much higher BOM costs. So at $250 it is very likely that Nook color is making a decent profit for B&N. B&N has a winner on this one, they own the distribution and don't have to pay for the software development (at least the majority of it).
I bought my first tablet, a Nook HD+, last week, because I wanted something I could use to read technical docs when I do cardio. I wanted something bargain basement cheap because I don't want to feel bad if it gets smashed.
Barnes and Noble has made the decision to deliver the most possible value per $ for customers by making the Nook HD+ compatible with Google Play and Kindle. The device isn't the most powerful and doesn't have a camera or GPS, but the screen is great.
Other tablet vendors are going to be rushing to deliver products that appeal to different market segments. Quite exciting!
Exactly what is the differentiation between a tablet and e-reader? This thing is aimed squarely at the BN Nook Color. Why is it being compared to the much more expensive and feature-full iPad?
Well people would prefer color if they could get it, every techie in the ebook world is wistfully awaiting the day that a high quality color e-reader is released.
I think its a close battle between Nook & Kindle currently, both are good ebook readers, hence the quick price drop by Amazon in response to B&N. I think the next versions of both devices might decide the winners
I don't know which nook he is referring to, but the Nook Color is an Android tablet basically with their e-reader software installed. Its not quite as clear cut as all that.
Looks like the Kindle and the Nook are the clear leaders in both availability and price.
I haven't been too impressed with magazine iPad apps, so I'm hoping the Kindle Fire reigns in their "creativity" a bit and keeps the prices more in line with the print equivalents.
So what about the Kindle and the Nook? They seem to be doing okay, and would anyone really call them a different market? I mean, they're obviously specialized as e-readers while the iPad is more general-purpose, but I don't see why Kindles and Nooks won't morph into more general-purpose devices as well (the Nooks already are fairly general-purpose)?
That is to say, are Kindles and Nooks fundamentally different from iPads, and therefore would be considered to serve different markets, or is it much more like Apple computers vs. PC's in the 80's? One had a much larger market share than the other, and they were different enough that we had a divide between "Apple Computers" and "Personal Computers", even though they largely did the same stuff?
The nook color is on sale for $200 and runs honeycomb. Same basic specs as the galaxy tab. Obviously not something the NYT could recommend, but any HN reader should find it easy to set up.
The Color Nook
According to various recent reports, Apple has about 10% share in ebook sales, Barnes and Noble 25%, and Kindle over 60%.
Don't know the latest sales figures, but as of March 28, 2011, 3 million Color Nooks were shipped, according to Digitimes:
Barnes & Noble already takes delivery of 3 million Nook Color e-book readers, say sources
Yenting Chen, Taipei; Steve Shen, DIGITIMES [Monday 28 March 2011]
Barnes & Noble has taken delivery of close to three million Nook Color e-book readers from its production partner, according to an estimate by sources from the Nook Color supply chain.
With a clear differentiation to Apple's iPads in display size, targeted market and pricing, the Nook Color, priced at US$249, has actually taken up over 50% of the iPad-like market in the North America market, indicated the sources.
Sales of the Nook Color topped one million units in the North America in the fourth quarter of 2010 and reached 600,000-700,000 units a month during the January-February period of 2011, the sources noted.
Barnes & Noble outsources the production of the Nook Color e-book readers to Inventec, noted the sources, adding that Inventec has landed tablet PC orders from Hewlett-Packard (HP).
EDIT: formatting
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