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Amazon Kindle Paperwhite goes on sale in the US – Barnes & Noble drops Nook GlowLight prices

Amazon will be releasing the latest in its lineup of Kindle eReaders today for our friends in the US, this time in the form of the new backlit Amazon Kindle Paperwhite.

No sooner had Amazon released the device than its main rival, the Barnes & Noble Nook with GlowLight, has been reduced in price to match the new Kindle.

So Barnes & Noble has announced that it will be dropping its prices for our US cousins of its Nook SimpleTouch with GlowLight, from $139 to $119, which puts the device at the exact same price as Amazon’s latest Kindle eReader.

B&N have had the backlit Nook eReader out for a few months and will obviously want to stay current with Amazon’s latest getting all the headlines, so it’s understandable why the Nook has seen a price drop.

Amazon’s new Kindle Paperwhite will be the first of its simple eReader range to feature a front-lit light display (after years of fans’ requests),  featuring a front-lit screen as opposed to the backlit display that the Nook has.

The screen size remains the same as the regular Kindle – that’s a  6.7-inch display – with a much sharper resolution, with the Paperwhite’s screen boasting a pixel density of 212 pixels per inch, along with 25% better contrast.

Just like the Kindle Touch, the screen on the new model is a capacitive one, making it touch friendly for swiping through books. There are no other buttons on the device for turning the page, and the black frame is just 9.1mm thick. The interesting X Ray feature that made its debut in the Kindle Touch will also be present on the Paperwhite model, meaning that users can select a word or phrase and look it up from within a book.

Both Amazon and Barnes & Noble will be looking to start their run-up to the Christmas period with the eReader devices, and with B&N looking to put its stamp on the UK in the coming months we can expect to see a lot more from the little-known (over here) company and what their products can offer us Brits.

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