Barnes & Nobles eReader is Live…And Sweet

We recently told you that the B&N eReader was launching for WM with a splash screen of ‘coming soon’. Well the day has come! Launching the app now prompts you to install an update that is in fact live. Once installed, you’ll be prompted for your B&N password or you can create a new password/login (but your default web browser will open for this). Once logged in you can go back to the app and you can begin to download 2 free ebooks (only three to choose from:)). Once you choose one it will download it and then you can open the ebook, but more on that in a minute. Tapping on the ebook from the homescreen gives you an overview of the book and even more detail if tapped again (pics below). You can also shop for more ebooks. You are actually again brought to your browser to shop and if you pick a book when you go back to the app you push ‘sync’ and then it appears in your list to download. When you start the app it also auto-syncs. I was testing this on VGA and it did resize (even though I was expecting WVGA only). As far as the reading experience itself – it’s great. It’s actually a lot more readable than I expected. It’s crisp black on white and you can swipe to turn the pages (and you get a little turn page animation). You can adjust all of this in settings as well. If you want to advance a few pages you can tap on the screen and get a slider. Once downside of the web-based method of searching is that it’s the mobile site on your phone so it’s a little harder to navigate the site and I haven’t tested buying an ebook on my PC and syncing to my phone…but I’m sure you guys will:) If you know the book you want to buy though this isn’t an issue.

Want some pics?

I’ve uploaded the application here to XDA.