Barnes and Noble Nook Color
Retail price: $250
When rumors surfaced back in October of a new Nook with a color screen, we had high hopes: better battery life, faster page turns, and maybe, just maybe, one of those fancy color e-ink screens, like the frequently-delayed, low-power Mirasol display from Qualcomm, that don't sacrifice readability at the expense of vibrant images. But maybe that was too much to ask from Barnes and Noble (BKS), a company that, after all, made its name selling bound stacks of ink on paper.
Instead, what was we got was a 7-inch slab stuck in tablet purgatory. The Nook Color lacks the featherweight status of e-ink readers, suffers from glare in the sun, and lacks the iPad's smooth interface. But the worst offense may be battery life between charges -- the estimated 8 hours with WiFi turned off falls way short of the Kindle 3's reported one-month charge, the classic Nook's 10 days, and even the full-colored iPad's 10-plus glorious unplugged hours.
NEXT: Dell Streak
Last updated December 22 2010: 8:24 AM ET
