Barnes & Noble has just released the second version of their popular Nook Tablet. The original device debuted for $249 with 16 GB storage, and joins the Kindle Fire ($199) in creating massive downward pressure on the retail pricing models of their tablet competitors. It is evident with their newest move that Barnes & Noble is serious about contending with Amazon for supremacy in the budget priced 7 inch tablet arena. The new Barnes and Noble 8 GB Nook Tablet will retail for $199, and offers 512 MB of RAM memory, the same as Amazon’s Kindle Fire.
Buy the Nook Tablet for $199.
However, the new 8 GB Nook Tablet allows for storage expansion up to 32 GB with the on board microSD slot, something that the Kindle Fire does not offer. Also, owners of the original 16 GB Nook Tablet complained that only 1 GB of that storage was dedicated to allow for sideloading their own content (videos, music, PDFs, EPUB, whatever). Anything over 1 GB required the addition of a microSD card for storage. The new 8 GB Nook Tablet quadruples that amount, and allows for a full 4 GB of its onboard storage for sideloading non-Barnes & Noble content.
During that same announcement, Barnes & Noble unveiled the new retail price for their Nook Color, dropping it to $169. Barnes & Noble’s most recent sales data was released, and their Nook revenue was up 40%, although their overall numbers missed Wall Street analysts’ expectations for their third quarter results. This shows that their Nook lineup is holding down the financial fort rather well for Barnes & Noble, and with the retail price drop of their popular Nook Color eReader and this new announcement of an 8 GB Nook tablet matching the Kindle Fire’s retail price, virtually ensures that their Nook lineup will continue to sell well.
The new 8 GB Nook Tablet uses a Texas Instruments OMAP4 dual core processor clocked at 1.0 GHz to power the device. However, Barnes & Noble promises extended battery life well above what is offered by the Kindle Fire. The Kindle Fire turns in just under 8.0 hours of reading time and 7.5 hours of video time from a single charge. Barnes & Noble says they designed the new 8 GB Nook Tablet to offer 11.5 hours of reading time and 9.0 hours of video. The new 8 GB Nook Tablet offers a screen resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels on its 7 inch display, and is slightly lighter than the Kindle Fire. Packaged with a modified version of the Android Gingerbread 2.3 operating system, there is no word on whether the new 8 GB Nook Tablet will receive an upgrade to Android’s 3.0 Honeycomb or 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Buy the Nook Tablet 8 GB for $199.
Buy the Nook Tablet 16 GB for $249
