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Barnes & Noble says that Nook sales increased 70% compared to the holiday season of 2010 (they are referring to the last nine weeks of the year). The Simple Touch e-reader sales were actually below expectations, but the Tablets sold very well.

B&N are now considering the option of spinning the Nook line off. They say that Nook sales (e-readers and e-books, probably) were worth around $1.5 billion in 2011, and they project a continued growth in the US and internationally in the next 12 months.

Amazon announced that the 2011 holiday period was a big success for the Kindle family. Customers bought "well over" 1 million Kindle devices per week, and the top three spots on Amazon.com's best seller charts are held by the Kindle Fire, the Kindle Touch and the Kindle 2011. The Kindle Fire is also the most gifted and most wished for product for 13 weeks in a row.

Kindle is also the best selling product on Amazon's UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy stores. Christmas day was the best day ever for Kindle book downloads.

Amazon announced that in the past three weeks they have sold over 1 million Kindle devices each week. This includes the complete range of Kindles - the Kindle Fire, the Kindle Touch, the Kindle 2011 and the Kindle Keyboard and Keyboard DX that are still selling.

We know that the Fire is the best selling of all, but unfortunately we do not know the exact breakdown between the various models...

Amazon reports good Black Friday Kindle sales - in fact they say total Kindle sales increased 4X compared to last year. The Kindle Fire is still Amazon's best selling product - for over 8 weeks in a row (since its introduction on September 28th).

Amazon wouldn't release any figures, but they did say that even before the weekend they sold "millions of the new Kindle family and Kindle Fire". Interestingly, they say that a lot of customers are buying multiple Kindles (some probably as gifts to others).

Engadget posted two reviews - of the Kindle Touch and the Kindle Fire. The Touch is deemed as a good e-reader, but they say the touch functionality isn't so good as to make them want to replace the older Kindle keyboard or Nook reader - "The Kindle Touch is as good as any touch reader out there, but there's nothing particularly exceptional about it...the Kindle Touch isn't the steal it appears to be on paper".

The Fire gets a more favorable review. While the Fire can't compete with other tablets as it's slow, the interface is sluggish and the functionality is restricted, but "The Kindle Fire is quite an achievement at $200. It's a perfectly usable tablet that feels good in the hand and has a respectably good looking display up front". So at this price point, the Fire is a great value and has a great integration of content acquisition into a mobile device.

There are reports that on November 16th Barnes & Noble will launch a new Tablet/E-reader called the Nook Tablet. This Android based device will have a color 7" IPS LCD (1024x600), a 1.2Ghz processor, 1GBN of RAM and 16GB of flash memory. B&N sees this as an upgrade to the Nook Color, and obviously as a competitor to the Kindle Fire.

The same reports suggest that on the same date B&N will lower the price of the Nook Touch from $139 to $99 - the same price of Amazon's Kindle Touch (with ads).

Kobo's Vox is now shipping in Canada for $199. The Vox is is available at all Indigo, Chapters and Coles stores and online, too. The Vox is an Android Tablet/E-reader that has a 7" AFFS LCD (1024x600) and Wi-Fi. The kobo-designed UI is customized for e-reading (although you will get access to the Android Market). The Vox includes 8GB of internal memory and an SD card slot.