$99 E-Reader War: Kobo Touch vs. Amazon Kindle Touch vs. B&N Nook Simple Touch

Toronto-based Kobo has unveiled its $99.99 Kobo Touch e-reader, which will display ads and other offers when not in use.

Kobo Touch with Offers is just like the Kobo Touch eReader but includes valuable offers and sponsored screens in discrete places outside of the reading experience, Kobo said in a statement.

Kobo, which recently agreed to be acquired by Japanese retailer Rakuten for $315 million, couldn't have launched its new e-reader at a better time, when e-readers are expected to be a big hit during this holiday shopping season. Kobo Touch with Offers will start shipping in two to three weeks.

Meanwhile, Kobo's device directly competes with Amazon's Kindle Touch with Special Offers and Barnes and Noble's Nook Simple Touch as all three have a 6-inch screen and come with $99 price point. Kindle Touch with Special Offers is due to ship on Nov. 21.

Let's see how these three e-readers fare against each other:

Specs	Kobo Touch With Offers	Kindle Touch With Special Offers	Nook Simple Touch
Ads	Yes	Yes	No
Display	6-inch Pearl high contrast E Ink display	6-inch 600 x 800 pixel resolution at 167 ppi, 16-level grayscale	6-inch E Ink display 800x600 resolution
Size	114x 165x 10 mm	172x 120 x 10.1 mm	165.1x 127x 11.9 mm
Weight	About 185 grams	213 grams	212 grams
Storage	2GB internal memory; expandable up to 32GB via SD card	4GB internal storage	2GB internal storage; expandable up to 32GB via SD card
Battery Life	Up to 1 month	Up to two months with wireless off	More than 2 months with wireless off
Connectivity	USB, Wi-Fi	USB, Wi-Fi	USB, Wi-Fi
Supported File Formats	Books: EPUB, PDF and MOBI Documents: PDF Images: JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP and TIFF Text: TXT, HTML and RTF Comic Books: CBZ and CBR	Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, Audible (Audible Enhanced(AA,AAX)), MP3, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; HTML, DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion	ePub5, PDF, JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP
Content Selection	Over 2.2 million books	Over 1 million books, newspapers, and magazines	Over 2.5 million titles