At today's Nook Tablet event, Barnes & Noble updated its ereader line with the $99 Nook Simple Touch. It's got a brand new Best-Text rendering platform that Barnes & Noble claims offers the fastest page turn of any ereader. In our review of the 2011 Nook, we found the text rendering of the E Ink display inferior to the Kindle's, so hopefully Best-Text lives up to its promise. Barnes & Noble ranks the battery life at up to 2 months on a single charge. The ereader is ad-free, and to drive the point home in another dig at Amazon, B&N CEO William Lynch said, "Do you really want to have to spend an extra $40 or give your friend an ad-based product?" Existing Simple Touch users will be able to upgrade for free, and will be able to download the 1.1 update at the Nook site.

Check out the Nook Simple Touch and Kindle Touch comparison here