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As confirmed by the earlier WSJ article, the Barnes & Noble ebook reader has been officially unveiled.  The reader has been dubbed the Nook and is selling for $259.  As of now the Nook is available as a pre-order, however it is not expected to begin shipping until the end of November.

That aside, if you can stand the wait, it would appear as if the Nook will be able to offer some competition for both the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader lineups.

Feature wise, the Nook has a 6-inch E Ink Vizplex electronic paper display along with a secondary 3.5-inch TFT color LCD.  You can expect to find 2GB of internal storage (that will hold up to 1,500 books) and a microSD card slot that can add up to an additional 16GB of storage.

Other features include;

• AT&T 3G connectivity along with Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
• Free Wi-Fi in all Barnes & Noble retail locations
• Measures in at 7.7 x 4.9 x 0.5 inches
• Weighs in at 11.2 ounces
• Charging via USB to computer or wall power adapter
• Charge time of 3.5 hours via wall power outlet
• Battery life of up to 10 days with the wireless turned off
• 3.5mm headphone jack and built-in mono speaker

In terms of support the Barnes & Noble Nook can read EPUB and eReader formats as well as the ability to view PDF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP and play MP3 files.

As for the software features, the Barnes & Noble Nook will connect to the Barnes & Noble ebook store, which is where that color LCD will come in handy.  But that is not where it stops, users will also be able to sample books from anywhere, browse complete books while in a Barnes & Noble retail location, make notes and highlight passages and even lend books to friends with the “LendMe technology.”

Finally, users will also be able to take advantage of the “Reading Now” feature that will allow you to read on multiple devices, which is similar to the Kindle and Whispernet.  The “Reading Now” feature will work with the eReader app on the iPhone as well as select BlackBerry and Motorola smartphones.

Read [Barnes & Noble nook eBook Reader]