The successor to the Barnes & Noble Nook Color will launch this month, DigiTimes reported on Friday. There is no mention if the Nook Color 2 will run Android, as the original did, although we hope Barnes & Noble considers using the more tablet-friendly Android 3.1 (Honeycomb) operating system this time around instead of a the Froyo build, which was designed for use on smartphones. Inventec and Pegatron will assemble the eReaders and supply as many as 2-3 million devices by the end of this year, the report says. TPK Holding will provide the 7-inch color touchscreen panels. DigiTimes also said that the Nook Color 2 E Ink will supply “e-paper backplanes,” which suggests there will be a new E Ink component to the Nook Color 2, although it is unclear what its role will be at this point. Barnes & Noble most recently released its “All New Nook,” a gray-scale device that we favored among all other eReaders. The Nook Color 2 could face stiff competition from Amazon’s new Android-powered tablet, which is also expected to launch this fall.
