Barnes & Noble’s NOOK Devices Top Most Gifted List, Nook Tablet Wins Display Shoot-Out With iPad and Fire

Barnes & Noble, Inc. reports that its NOOK family of devices the NOOK Tablet, the NOOK Color and NOOK Simple Touch are among the hottest holiday gift items this year.

“We created the highest quality line of reading and entertainment devices at the greatest value for customers, and our record-breaking NOOK Tablet, NOOK Color and NOOK Simple Touch sales thus far this holiday are a testament to that,” says William Lynch, Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble. “While other recently announced tablets have incurred quality issues with customers, NOOK Tablet is receiving tremendous customer ratings and early feedback from users. In these last few days of holiday shopping, we invite customers to go into their local Barnes & Noble and see for themselves why NOOK Tablet has become one of this season’s hottest gifts.”

Nook Tablet also came out on top in a tablet display shoot-out pitting it against the iPad 2 and Amazon’s Kindle Fire. 9To5Mac’s Christian Zibreg reports on a tablet display shootout conducted by Dr. Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate Technologies Corporation of Amherst, N.H.

Dr. Soneira set out to find out which device packed the best IPS display. Zibreg points out that LG Displays, the worlds leading manufacturer of IPS LCDs, is the supplier of IPS panels for the three devices used in the shoot-out, but the iPad 2, the test note said, remains the gold standard in tablet displays while Motorola’s Xoom and Acers Iconia Tab serve as prime examples of low-quality LCD displays.

The report notes that the Fire’s display is on par with iPad 2’s and Nook Tablet’s in most respects, with two important exceptions — limited gray-scale rendering, and an anti-reflective treatment with about 70 percent higher reflectance levels compared to the iPad 2 and more than double the reflectance of the Nook Tablet — bad for reading outdoors or in brightly lightes indoor areas. Meanwhile, Barnes & Nobles Nook Tablet has the lowest reflectance of any tablet DisplayMate ever tested, showing 28 percent lower reflectance than even the iPad 2, and gray-scale rendering more accurate than most living room HDTVs.

Consequently, Nook wins the shootout. For the full report visit here:
http://bit.ly/u1aQAc

Success of Barnes & Noble’s NOOK devices is driving demand for Barnes & Noble content over the prior year. NOOK Books are also increasing in popularity as a companion gift to NOOK devices, with top gifted titles including The Help, Steve Jobs, The Hunger Games Trilogy, The Hunger Games and 11/22/63, the newest title from bestselling author Stephen King.

To make last-minute shopping decisions even easier, Barnes & Noble is delivering a trade-in offer for their family of NOOK devices. Through December 24, 2011, customers can visit any Barnes & Noble bookstore and trade in their NOOK 1st Edition when they purchase any new NOOK device, and receive a $50 Barnes & Noble gift card free.

Moreover, Barnes & Noble is offering free shipping and gift wrapping on NOOK for the holidays. Online shoppers can order any NOOK by December 22, 2011 at 11:59 pm (EST) for free delivery in time for Christmas (December 24, 2011). And in any Barnes & Noble store, customers can have their newly purchased NOOK device gift-wrapped at no cost.

The gift cards from this special promotion or those purchased separately online or in-store can be used to purchase any digital or physical content from Barnes & Noble including NOOK accessories, NOOK Apps and more. NOOK Tablet and NOOK Color customers will also be able to apply their physical or digital Barnes & Noble gift cards while shopping on their devices. For those customers who already own NOOK devices or are receiving them as gifts, Barnes & Noble makes it easy and fun to give the gift of reading with instant NOOK Book gifting. Simply visit http://www.bn.com and choose any NOOK Books from the more than 2 million available, or any high quality, popular NOOK Apps to give as gifts. Books and apps are delivered instantly to recipients on their NOOK Tablet or NOOK Color device.

Customers can experience the entire line of NOOK devices at Barnes & Nobles in-store NOOK Digital Shops, including the new NOOK Tablet for $249 and the newly updated NOOK Color at $199. NOOK Color recently underwent its largest-ever software update adding over 100 feature enhancements, access to top video and music services, popular apps, comics and more. In addition, NOOK Simple Touch has an advanced E Ink display with lightning-fast page turns, plus a best-in-class battery life that is great for people who love to read for long stretches up to two months with an hour of reading a day, all on a single charge with no annoying ads for $99.

Barnes & Noble’s NOOK brand of eReading products makes 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 Barnes & Noble’s expansive NOOK Store of more than 2.5 million digital titles, and the ability to enjoy content across a wide array of popular devices. The new NOOK Tablet is Barnes & Nobles fastest, lightest tablet with the best in HD entertainment from top services and everything you want in a tablet at a great value ($249). Both NOOK Tablet and the award-winning NOOK Color ($199) feature a 7-inch VividView Color Touchscreen to read all of the content you love, shop popular apps, connect via email, browse the Web and more. The NOOK Simple Touch ($99), is claimed to be the fastest, easiest to use reader with the world’s best reading screen and the longest battery life.

Barnes & Noble offers NOOK owners Always Free NOOK Support in any of its more than 700 bookstores, as well as free Wi-Fi connectivity to enjoy the Read In Store feature to read NOOK Books for free, and the More In Store program, which offers free, exclusive content and special promotions. Barnes & Noble was the first company to offer digital lending for a wide selection of books through its LendMe technology, available through NOOK eReading products. Find NOOK devices in Barnes & Noble stores and online at www.BN.com, as well as at Best Buy, Walmart, Staples, Target, Radio Shack, Books-A-Million, OfficeMax, Fred Meyer, P.C. Richard & Son stores, Frys Electronics and Systemax Inc. retailers.

In addition to NOOK devices, Barnes & Noble makes it easy for customers to enjoy any book, anytime, anywhere with its FREE NOOK Reading Apps, available at:
http://www.nook.com/freenookapps

Customers can use Barnes & Noble’s free eReading software to access and read books from their personal Barnes & Noble digital library on devices including iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Android smartphones and tablets, PC and Mac. Lifetime Library helps ensure that Barnes & Noble customers will always be able to access their digital libraries on NOOK products and software-enabled devices and BN.com. Barnes & Noble also offers NOOK Study ( http://www.nookstudy.com ), an innovative study platform and software solution for higher education, NOOK Kids ( http://www.nookkids.com ), a collection of digital picture and chapter books for children, and NOOK Books en espaol ( http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ebooksenespanol ), the first-ever Spanish language digital bookstore in the United States.

For more information on NOOK devices and eReading software, updates, new NOOK Book releases, Free Friday NOOK Books and more, follow on:
http://www.twitter.com/nookBN
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http://www.facebook.com/nookBN