Barnes and Noble came clean about their e-reader device today, and yes, it’s called the Nook.  And like the leak said the device sports a 6″ e-ink screen for actually reading the books (or magazines) as well as a 3.5″ color touchscreen for perusing Barnes’ ebook store.  If you’re game, you can preorder the device today for $259 (the same price as Amazon’s 6″ offering) and it should ship as early as 11/30, which is a bit late for the whole bum rush of holiday sales.

As for wireless delivery of books you can jack into any available WiFi connection, or suck them down over AT&T’s 3G connection.  Built-in storage caps out at 2GB, which is good for about 1,500 books, but you can expand that to a whopping 16GB via microSD card slot.  Taking a cue from Apple, it looks like the battery is non-removable and will achieve up to 10 days of page turning action before you need a recharge, which takes about 3.5 hours.

Size wise were looking at a .5″ thin, 4.9″ wide and 7.7″ long, which makes it a bit fatter than any of Amazon’s Kindles and a bit shorter and narrower than their 6″ versions.

For all you Android fans out there you’ll be glad to here the Nook has joined the ranks, the first e-reader to sport the OS.  To get another leg over Amazon they’re letting users lend e-books for up to 14 days to other Nook users and their store currently boast over 1 million titles that start at $9.99.

While my vote is still out on the Nook until I get a hands on, the color touchscreen is a huge draw, but might prove more gimmick than anything else.  Kindle does have a physical QWERTY keyboard, but since I’ve never tested one I can’t speak to its actually usability.

Video walk through after the ‘leap’

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