Barnes & Noble has knocked the price of its Nook e-reader down from $259 to $199–and announced a Nook with Wi-Fi but no 3G connection for $149. The $199 model is the lowest-cost e-reader with 3G; the $149 one matches the price of the Kobo from B&N retail archrival Borders. (The Kobo doesn’t even have Wi-Fi–you download books to a computer, then sync them over via USB cable.)
Amazon.com’s Kindle is still $259 as I write, but Amazon has had plenty of time to decide how to respond to a B&N-initiated price war, and presumably has a strategy in place already. Seems like the general post-iPad trend is for E-Ink e-readers to get dive down below $200 in price; it’ll be surprising if the Kindle–the current model, anyhow–is an exception.
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June 21st, 2010 at 8:41 am
Excellent news. It’s about time that some good ‘ole healthy competition drove down the price of e-readers. Soon, I can actually consider buying one.
June 21st, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Sounds like a good deal. $50 for the 3G modem upcharge is low in comparison to just about anything else out there. Throw in the perpetual 3G service at no additional fee and it starts to look like a steal. I wonder how long it will be before someone hacks it to work like a MiFi? Then, I wonder how long it will be before the first customer either loses their 3G service for violating terms of service or hits some kind of data cap?
July 31st, 2010 at 9:09 pm
Maybe someday states will even charge sales tax to Amazon purchases to really even the playing field! Until that time I will never buy an e-reader from them.
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