LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--NOOK Media LLC, a subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller and leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, is proud to announce that its critically acclaimed E Ink® line of NOOK devices – NOOK Simple Touch and NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight, the first E Ink device with a built-in reading light.
Customers across the UK will now be able to experience first-hand the high quality NOOK eReaders in more than 1,600 top high street retailers. Both eReaders are on shelves in John Lewis, Argos, Asda, Sainsbury’s, Dixons and Waitrose, Blackwell’s and Foyles and the bestselling eReaders are also be available to purchase through the newly live UK website: www.nook.co.uk.
Priced at £109, NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight was the first to combine an E Ink display with a touchscreen, built-in anti-glare screen for reading in any lit environment, and an evenly distributed and adjustable light for reading in the dark. This will come as good news to the 50% of Brits who are currently kept awake by a partner’s reading light, according to research commissioned by Barnes & Noble in the U.K.
With a price tag of just £79, ultra-light and portable NOOK Simple Touch is an ideal Christmas present for the 24% of Brits who prefer to read on their daily commute to work. Both NOOK products offer excellent battery life – over one month on a single charge with the light on, or over two months with the GlowLight off. The intuitive 6-inch touchscreen means the NOOK Simple Touch is easy to navigate, shop and read and 2GB of built-in storage means that readers can hold up to 1,000 digital books.
Beginning today, UK bookworms can also browse over 2.5 million digital books on the NOOK Store, including top selling UK eBooks, new releases and classics, as well as UK favourite newspaper and magazine titles, such as Good Housekeeping, Marie Claire, Men’s Health, Cosmopolitan, and The Independent. The NOOK Store also offers a large collection of titles from independent publishers and self-publishing authors through the PubIt™ programme.
Jamie Iannone, President of NOOK Media said, “We’re thrilled to be able to bring our award- winning products and expansive NOOK Store to the UK’s discerning customers. The NOOK brand was created for people who love literature and reading, which is why the UK was a natural place for us to begin our international expansion. Our extensive content catalog, intuitive shopping and reading experience, and breakthrough discovery tools like NOOK Channels are a perfect fit for UK digital book readers."
Barnes & Noble is also bringing NOOK HD and NOOK HD+, the lightest HD and full HD tablets, to the UK in late November and available to pre-order online starting today. The super-fast and lightweight 7-inch NOOK HD and 9-inch NOOK HD+ feature must-see displays for superior reading and entertainment and an instantly personalised tablet experience for each family member. Priced from £159 for NOOK HD and £229 for NOOK HD+ – the tablets deliver amazing value for customers, with NOOK HD+ at nearly half the cost of the leading large-format tablet.
1 Research undertaken by Harris Interactive Inc, September 2012 with total 2,021 respondents, of whom 1000 reside in the UK.
Introducing NOOK to the UK
The NOOK family of eReading products was developed by Barnes & Noble, the world’s largest bookseller, with decades of bookselling and publishing expertise. NOOK is one of the fastest growing digital brands, and its growth will be further bolstered by expanding its award-winning products, software and content to the UK.
With millions of NOOKs sold to reading lovers in the US, NOOK Simple Touch and NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight are the most highly acclaimed, easiest-to-use eReaders combining an ergonomic form factor with a paper-like, glare-free readability, even in bright sunlight. NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight is the first eReader that’s perfect for outdoors, with no glare even in bright sunlight, combined with a fully adjustable integrated lighting solution for nighttime reading. It’s like having two devices in one! Both products are extremely lightweight, feature extra-long battery life and built-in access via Wi-Fi® to the NOOK Store™. NOOK Simple Touch and NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight are available for only £79 and £109, respectively.
Light, Compact and Portable
NOOK Simple Touch’s easy to hold, contoured design and soft-touch back make it easy and comfortable to read, even with just one hand, for extended periods of time. The sleek and durable device is compact enough to easily fit in a jacket, pocket, handbag or backpack. Both devices are lighter than a paperback at less than 200 grams. With 2GB of storage (1GB for content, 750 MB reserved for NOOK content)*, NOOK can hold up to 1,000 eBooks and more content using the expandable memory.
Easy-to-Use, Responsive Touchscreen
With a simple tap to NOOK Simple Touch’s intuitive 6-inch touchscreen, it’s easy to navigate, shop and read. Customers can look up words, highlight passages, adjust the font size and style or search using the on-screen keyboard that appears only when the customer needs it. The paper-like E Ink display features crisp, clear text that’s great for reading anywhere, even in bright sunlight.
Brightest Innovation in Reading
NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight was designed to address E Ink readers’ number-one request: the ability to read in the dark to avoid bothering a significant other. The innovative lighting technology creates a better nighttime reading experience. GlowLight shines uniformly across the display, turns on instantly and adjusts with just a touch, so customers can control the amount of light illuminating their device, whether commuting or in a dark room. Like having two eReaders in one, NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight doubles as the ideal reading device for bed and bright sunlight.
Long-Lasting Battery Life
With NOOK Simple Touch and NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight, there’s no need to bring a charger on a weekend break or holiday. NOOK Simple Touch is optimised for extra-long battery life, enabling customers to read for over two months on a single charge with Wi-Fi off.** NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight offers over one month on a single charge with the light on, or over two months with GlowLight off.***
A Personalised Experience
Customers can make the NOOK experience their own, and can choose from seven font sizes and six font styles to customise their favourite reads. Organising your eBooks couldn’t be easier using My Shelves: customers can group and arrange books on customised shelves, just like a bookcase. NOOK eReaders can be personalised with preloaded screen savers, or customers can upload personal photos to make NOOK their own. NOOK also offers a complete selection of colourful, high quality accessories to fit your style.
Shop 2.5 Million Books and More
NOOK wirelessly connects via Wi-Fi to the NOOK Store, one of the world’s largest digital bookstores. Whether on their device or shopping online at www.nook.co.uk this autumn, UK customers will find more than 2.5 million digital books including top-selling UK eBooks, new releases, classics and more, favourite UK newspapers and magazines, so customers can enjoy a wide variety of digital content at their fingertips. The NOOK Store also offers a large collection of titles from independent publishers and self-publishing authors through the PubIt™ programme.
Customers can easily browse by department or learn what to read next by exploring NOOK Channels™, a pioneering recommendation system for an unparalleled, curated discovery experience targeted to the reader’s interests. UK customers can sample any NOOK Book™ for free and download content in seconds. Avid and social readers can swap books with friends through innovative LendMe® technology, which Barnes & Noble pioneered. The NOOK Store also provides top bookseller picks and other recommendations.
Customers can browse the NOOK Store online at www.nook.co.uk and on NOOK devices beginning next week and NOOK devices this month.
Free NOOK Reading Apps
NOOK customers will be able to “Read what they love, anywhere they like™” on NOOK eReaders as well as their favourite mobile and computing devices using free NOOK reading apps, with apps for iOS devices, Android tablets and smart phones to be made available this autumn, and others to follow in 2013.
Purchased NOOK content is always safe and available through NOOK® Cloud. Because NOOK Simple Touch devices use the open, most widely used EPUB format, customers can also borrow eBooks from their local library. In addition to NOOK digital content, readers easily transfer and read personal EPUB and PDF files on your device.
Availability
For just £79 and £109, the critically acclaimed NOOK Simple Touch and NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight can now be ordered in stores and online through leading participating retailers John Lewis, Argos, Sainsbury’s, Dixons, Waitrose, Blackwell’s and Foyles. Products will be stocked in these retailers and available to experience first-hand beginning in early October. More information is available on www.nook.co.uk, where customers will soon be able to order NOOKs and purchase digital content. NOOK order deliveries will begin in early October.
UK residents wishing to learn more about NOOK can visit www.nook.co.uk, as well as on Facebook.com/nook and Twitter.com/nook_uk.
* GB = 1 billion bytes. Actual formatted capacity may be less
**
Battery test based on a half hour of daily reading time with Wi-Fi®
off
*** Battery tests based on a half hour of daily
reading time with Wi-Fi® off, with GlowLight on at
default brightness setting
About Barnes & Noble, Inc.
Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS) is a Fortune 500 company and the leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products. The company operates 689 Barnes & Noble bookstores in 50 states, and one of the Web’s largest e-commerce sites, BN.com (www.bn.com). Its NOOK Media LLC subsidiary is a leader in the emerging digital reading and digital education markets. The NOOK digital business offers award-winning NOOK® products and an expansive collection of digital reading and entertainment content through the NOOK Store™ (www.nook.com), while Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, LLC operates 667 bookstores serving over 4.6 million students and faculty members at colleges and universities across the United States. Barnes & Noble is proud to be named a J.D. Power and Associated 2012 Customer Service Champion and is only one of 50 U.S. companies so named. Barnes & Noble.com is ranked the number one online retailer in customer satisfaction in the book, music and video category and a Top 10 online retailer overall in customer satisfaction according to ForeSee E-Retail Satisfaction Index (Spring Top 100 Edition).
General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained via the Internet by visiting the company's corporate website: www.barnesandnobleinc.com.
NOOK®, NOOK Store™, NOOK Video™, NOOK Video Apps™ are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc. Other trademarks referenced in this release are the property of their respective owners.
Follow Barnes & Noble on Twitter (www.bn.com/twitter), Facebook (www.facebook.com/barnesandnoble) and YouTube (www.youtube.com/user/bnstudio).
About NOOK Media LLC
NOOK reading and entertainment products make it easy to read what you love, anywhere you like™ with a fun, easy-to-use and immersive digital reading experience. With NOOK, customers gain access to the expansive NOOK Store™ of more than 3 million digital books, plus periodicals, comics, apps, movies and TV shows, and the ability to enjoy content across a wide array of popular devices through free NOOK Reading Apps™ and NOOK Video apps, available at www.nook.com/freenookapps. NOOK owners receive Always Free NOOK Support in any of Barnes & Noble’s nearly 700 bookstores. Find NOOK devices in Barnes & Noble stores and online at www.nook.com, as well as leading retailers including Best Buy, Walmart, Target and many others. NOOK products are available in the United Kingdom through www.nook.co.uk and leading retailers.
For more information on NOOK, follow us on www.twitter.com/nookBN or www.twitter.com/nook_UK and www.facebook.com/nook.