Barnes & Noble launches new tablets in e-books fight
NEW YORK, Thu Sep 27, 2012 - Barnes & Noble Inc's first high-definition tablets, unveiled on Wednesday, were well received by analysts who said the devices keep the bookseller in the fight with Amazon.com Inc, Apple Inc and Google Inc - for now.
The largest U.S. bookstore chain has staked its future on success in the growing e-books industry in the face of declining sales of physical books that last year led to the bankruptcy of the Borders bookstore chain.
Barnes & Noble introduced a $199 7-inch Nook HD tablet that will go up against similar, recently launched products by Google and Amazon.com this holiday season.
The company also unveiled a $269 9-inch Nook HD+ tablet that will compete with the Apple iPad.
"The devices are an improvement in important ways over the previous generations of the Nook, and they one-up Amazon in some areas," Forrester Research analyst Sarah Rotman Epps told Reuters.
While the new products are thinner and lighter than rivals and follow a few months after Microsoft said it would invest $605 million in Barnes & Noble's Nook e-reader and college business, the bookstore chain still faces a daunting task.