New Product Listings on B&N Website Hint at New Nook Models Coming This Fall
When B&N announced a couple months ago that they were/weren’t getting out of hardware development, just about the only safe conclusion that could be drawn from the news was that there would probably be new devices this Fall with the Nook brand stuck on them somewhere.
I still don’t have anything new on the technical details of B&N’s new hardware, but today I did get a hint about possible new names.
A reader has tipped me to several new product listings on the B&N website. The listings are for accessories and not the new devices. They have the bare minimum of data (no images and no description), but they do hint at the names for the new Nook hardware.
The 3 listings mention a clip cover, a stand, and an anti-glare screen film kit for 2 devices mentioned only as AV and SW. The accessories won’t be available until 1 October, and they carry prices ranging from $18 to $36.
My source also told me that there are a number of other product pages already in B&N’s system that mention accessories for the SW and AV. He thinks that the new devices will be called the Nook SW and Nook AV. He could be right but at this point there’s not enough info to say for sure.
Again, there are no pictures, so this leak isn’t nearly as useful as the similar leak from 2010 that showed us the Nook Color for the first time. That too was an anti-glare kit, and we even got to see a reasonably accurate render.
But even though there are no images, this leak does offer us a time frame for the launch. If these accessories are going to be on the shelf by 1 October then the related devices will be launched some time in the next 2 months.
TBH that doesn’t tell us anything we couldn’t have guessed based on past launches but it is more definite than a mere guess.
B&N’s current ereaders were originally released in 2011 (with only a slight update in 2012), so they are getting rather long in the tooth compared to the Kindle Paperwhite or the Kobo Aura HD and its 6.8″ screen.
And of course we all know that the Nook HD and Nook HD+ Android tablets were such a huge success that they were put on clearance 2 months back. At their current prices they are a great deal, but curiously enough they’ve been on clearance for 2 months and are still available just about everywhere.
I point this out because it is either a sign of just how badly B&N over-estimated demand or it is a sign that the average consumer is using their wallet to give B&N a vote of no confidence. If the latter is true then B&N would be better off not launching new hardware. No one is going to buy the new stuff either, so it would just be more money down the drain.
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