The web is full of rumours of a possible colour screen version of the Kindle ereader as a result of a leak to a Chinese Newspaper.

Note added later:

As you will see from the link that Nate of the Digital Reader, has posted in the comments section below, it would seem that this is an unfounded rumour…  Not unusual in the world of electronic gadgets.

So I am glad I posed the title to this post in the form of a question….   As Nate so succinctly puts it…………..  Nope.

Now read on…. and enjoy the rumour for what it is worth.   remains a nice idea I feel, even if untrue.

According to a report in the Chinese paper, the Economic Daily News, e-Ink, the company who make the majority of the screens on our various ereaders, including their newest colour screen the Triton screen, have received a large order from Amazon to supply their 6 inch version of the Triton screen, with – it is claimed – a follow up order for up to 3 million units a month thereafter.

So far Amazon themselves have said nothing about this rumour, but it seems a logical step for Amazon to take I feel.

Dedicated ereader:

This would be a dedicated ereader apparently, not simply a smaller screened version of their tablet, the Fire, and would fill the gap in the ereader world for those who want to read magazines, text books and children’s books on their ereaders, all media that need colour to be pleasurable to read.

This screen is also a touch screen, so it fits neatly into Amazon’s collection of devices on which to read ebooks, and in fact fills that one gap that so far they have not yet attacked.

The point of using this screen technology, rather than as with the majority of Tablets, an LCD screen, is that it offers all the advantages of the current generation of monochrome ereader screens, long battery life, ease of reading in bright light, easy on the eyes if you read a lot.  Against these advantages, is the fact that the colours are nothing like as vibrant as those on an LCD screen, nor is the screen refresh rate fast enough to watch videos with.  So this is truly a dedicated ereader, not merely a Tablet with slightly different screen technology.

Kindles are always cheap:

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Ruben Sardaryan,  the guy who set up ereaderlookup.com has produced a very elegant and easy to use data base of – currently – about 130 different ereaders.

Basically what he has created is a searchable database of as many ereaders as he can find, organized by a wide range of search parameters.  I know that all blogs that deal with ereaders have reviews of loads of different ereaders, and most have these reviews organized in some way to enable you to relatively easily get to those reviews, but as far as I know, he has produced the only site that is specifically organized to allow visitors to find ereaders defined by a whole range of parameters, and easily too.

So, how does it work?

On the homepage one finds a number of drop down menus with scrollable lists with which one defines the parameters one finds important in order to try and find the exact ereader that meets your specific requirements.

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There are rumours flying around the net that Barnes and Noble will launch yet another version of their Nook ereader later this Spring (or Autumn if you happen to live south of the Equator as I do).

However, B & N are keeping very tight lipped about this rumour.

The general feeling is that if they are busy putting the finishing touches onto what would be the 5^th version of the Nook to release it onto the World in the next couple of months, it will probably be yet another e-Ink based device rather than a Tablet.  Thought to be honest, I have no idea what people are basing this thought upon, as literally no information has leaked out of the underground bunker where B & N’s engineers are beavering away on this purported latest Nook ereader.

We shall see in due time, obviously.

Watch this space for further developments.

In a rather neat move, Barnes and Noble have just launched a scheme in which if you take a year’s subscription to the New York Times electronic edition they will either give or sell you one of their ereaders for a heavily reduced price.

Nook Simple Touch or Nook Colour?

If you plump for the Nook Simple Touch, then the ereader is free, all you have to pay for is the monthly subscription to the New York Times, which is $19.99, and provided you pay your monthly subscription, all will be well.

They are offering the Nook Colour as well, but here, as well as the monthly $19.99 for the New York Times, you will have to pay $99 for the ereader.  This is a reduction of $100 on its regular price, so still a good deal.

Here is what Barnes and Noble have to say about it all:

Receive a new NOOK Simple Touch™ from Barnes & Noble FREE with a 1 year subscription to the New York Times between 1/9/2012 and 3/9/2012. The monthly subscription price for the New York Times is $19.99. The 1-year subscription will be billed in 12 monthly installments to the active credit card linked to the B&N account used at the time of sign up or default credit card on such account. If at any time within the year the subscription is cancelled or the monthly charge is unable to be processed, an early termination fee of $99 will be charged. The B&N account used at the time of sign-up is responsible for all 12 monthly installments regardless of the device registration. After the initial year, the B&N account holder will be notified that the subscription will continue automatically at the price then in effect and can be cancelled at any time.

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And fails lamentably in my view.

Starting in January, if you have bought a new Kobo Touch between now and the end of March next year, you will be able to download one free ebook a month for a year from Kobo’s ebook store, which sounds at first glance to be an interesting and possibly pleasant idea.

Not as good as it sounds:

However, as is so often the case in this life, it is not quite as wonderful as it sounds.  First off, it is only available to people who live in Canada or the USA (why on earth should this be the case?  Have these people not understood that the internet is world wide…  WWW means World Wide Web after all), and secondly, the happy and proud owner of the Kobo Touch ereader can’t download any old ebook from the Kobo ebook store, nope, they will be offered a choice of one of three ebooks each month.

An extraordinary collection:

They have announced the amazing selection they have made for January 2012, and if it is indicative of the ebooks that will be offered for the remaining 11 months, things are pretty thin really.

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In a press release I received this morning,  Amazon announced the launch of their latest “local” online ebook store, the Italian Kindle Store.

This is exciting news for all Italians who want the joys of using a Kindle for their ereading, and want ebooks in Italian.   They can now buy the latest Kindle, the Kindle 4 that will be set up to work in Italian and have all the advantages that other nation’s Kindle owners already have…. All except the free 3G bit, for that they will have to wait a bit until the touch screen Kindle comes to Italy in due time.

This is really good news for consumers in Italy, not sure if it is such good news for other ebook sellers there though, Amazon is a large and heavy duty competitor, and totally ruthless as well.   We shall see.

But, in the mean time, here is a quote from Amazon’s press release that gives an idea of the sort of ebooks that you lucky Italians will be able to buy from Amazon:

“We are excited to introduce the new Italian Kindle Store with the largest digital selection of Italian-language titles to millions of Amazon.it customers today. Italian customers are passionate about books and reading and we believe they will love reading great Italian books like Roberto Saviano’s ‘Gomorra,’ Tiziano Terzani’s ‘Un indovino mi disse’ and current best sellers like the new Steve Jobs biography on Kindle,” said Diego Piacentini, senior vice president, Amazon.com. “Kindle is already the best-selling e-reader in the world. It comes with an electronic ink display that reads like real paper, with no glare, even in bright daylight and it offers the convenience of downloading books in less than 60 seconds. Kindle is so small and light that it disappears in your hands, which is great when you are looking for a story in which you can get lost in the author’s words like Umberto Eco’s ‘Il Cimitero di Praga.’”

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