Barnes & Noble Nook Hands-On? No, Hands-Off!

So, I’ve looked around the Web, and it appears that Barnes & Noble isn’t yet letting any one touch its Nook, the e-reader introduced yesterday. That makes it tougher to tell whether this supposed Kindle killer is for real, but so far I like what I see. The Nook measures 7.7 x 4.9 x 0.5 inches, and it has two screens: A six-inch E-ink display for e-book text, and a 3.5-inch (diagonal) touch screen for navigating through the device. AT&T’s providing the wireless, letting you download over a million books from Barnes & Noble’s online store.

The Nook runs on Google’s Android version 1.5, and in addition to supporting e-books, it lets you play MP3s and upload photos as screensavers. But the Nook’s killer feature is LendMe, a service that lets you borrow e-books from friends for up to two weeks at a time. The feature even works with people using Barnes & Noble’s e-reader app on certain Blackberry and Motorola phones. As for the eyes on impressions, the most critical I could find was from Engadget, who says the screen has a shallow viewing angle (probably to improve battery life) and that the virtual keyboard’s D-pad seems a little awkward for highlighting text. But in general, excitement is high. The Nook goes on sale in late November for $259 — same as Amazon’s Kindle.