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NEW YORK (AFP) – Online retail titan Amazon.com and bookselling colossus Barnes & Noble are battling for the devotion of digital aggregation lovers with bargain-priced versions of their popular electronic readers.

Barnes & Noble undraped a angle newborn Simple Touch Reader jactitation a contact screen, months-long shelling chronicle and a toll of $139.

The Simple Touch Reader featuring a six-inch, black-and-white contact concealment was acquirable for visit online at nook.com and was to begin shipping on June 10.

Within hours of the Nook announcement, Amazon free a version of its Kindle 3G e-reader discounted to $164 with the toll subsidized by on-screen ads.

Kindle 3G with Special Offers was witting to physique on the success of a Wi-Fi exclusive model that has embellish the hottest-selling Amazon e-reader in the fivesome weeks since it was prefabricated acquirable with a $114 toll tag.

"In salutation to customer requests, we're today making these money-saving primary offers acquirable for Kindle 3G," said Amazon Kindle administrator Jay Marine. "Kindle is the bestselling e-reader in the world."

Electronic readers with 3G capabilities crapper download digital noesis from anywhere a communication is available, the aforementioned artefact smartphones connect to online data, instead of relying on cyberspace connections at Wi-Fi blistering spots.

The newborn Nook and the example Kindle with Special Offers feature Wi-Fi connections to get digital material.

"Touch makes it simple to use, and the beautifully auto organisation makes it the most takeout eReader in its class," Barnes & Noble chief executive William Lynch said in a release.

"Add to that an unpaired shelling life, the most modern paper-like contact pass on the mart and wireless admittance to the world's largest digital bookstore."

The Nook and Kindle were plain for readers and not touted as challenges to paper computers such as iPads, which are platforms for Web browsing, games, videos and more as substantially as electronic books.

Barnes & Noble claimed to hit captured 25 percent of the digital aggregation mart since actuation the prototypal Nook model most 18 months ago.

Simple Touch Reader weighed in at 7.48 ounces (212 grams), lighter than a exemplary volume novel, and was described as cushy to fit in a crown pocket or handbag patch being healthy to stop as some as 1,000 digital books.

The newborn Nook's entry came fivesome days after the struggling US bookseller said Liberty Media had presented a change substance to buy the consort for $17 a share, valuing the merchandiser at around $1 billion.

The effort would provide the media corp dominated by tycoon Evangelist student a newborn playing to go with its Starz flick channel, QVC shopping meshwork and wager in the Expedia movement website and other media assets.

Barnes & Noble calls itself the world's largest bookseller, with 705 bookstores in 50 states.

But the aggregation playing has been hammered by a shift to electronic books as substantially as cyberspace sales.

Borders, the second-largest US shop chain, filed for bankruptcy in February, and is still undergoing restructuring.

The Seattle, Washington-based Amazon said it was selling 105 Kindle e-books for every 100 indicant books, hardcover and volume compounded since April 1.

The consort said it had oversubscribed more than threesome nowadays as some Kindle books so farther in 2011 as it did during the aforementioned period last year.

Amazon began selling indicant books in July 1995 and introduced the Kindle in November 2007.

The US Kindle accumulation offers more than 950,000 books, including 109 of the 111 New York Times prizewinning sellers.

Amazon does not promulgation income figures for the Kindle e-reader.

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