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No Nook e-reader til 7 December or later

Kindle selling merrily in meantime

Amazon has sold more of its Kindle e-reader than any other products, it claims, boding badly for Barnes & Noble whose Nook won't even be seen in stores until 7 December.

Amazon doesn't share Kindle figures, but today announced that the eBook reader with built-in keyboard is its bestselling product across all product categories on Amazon. Meanwhile, Barnes & Noble has admitted that it won't even have demonstration samples of its competing Nook device by 7 December as it struggles to fulfil pre-orders.

Amazon is fuzzy on the details: we don't know if all models of Kindle were compared to, say, all models of iPod Touch, or over what period the Kindle was the bestselling product (we've put these questions to the company). But even if the comparison is somewhat cherry-picked, it still means the retailer is shifting a lot of Kindles, which means a lot of customers tied into the Kindle platform.

Barnes & Noble was supposed to have the Nook in its stores by now, but has said that every available unit is being sent out to those who pre-ordered. This leaves none to put in stores or provide to reviewers.

In addition to B&N's proprietary platform the Nook will support Adobe's Digital Editions using ePub for layout, which means there should be plenty of content once one can get hold of the hardware.

We're looking forward to seeing the Nook, which puts a touch-sensitive screen where the Kindle keeps its keyboard, though both seem extraneous to the primary function of reading stuff. ®

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