Barnes & Noble saw Amazon’s Kindle Fire and raised it with a brand-spanking new tablet of its own.
The major book retailer and e-reader maker announced the new $249 Nook Tablet on Nov. 7, 2011, along with a release date of Nov. 18. The announcement was accompanied by a price drop in its original tablet, the Nook Color, to $199. The dual-booting Nook Color likely played as big a role as the Apple iPad in the creation of the Kindle Fire after it overtook Amazon’s Kindle e-readers in global sales. The company also dropped the price of the Nook Simple Touch E Ink reader from $139 to $99.
With pre-sales of the Kindle Fire at a sizzling pace, B&N has a lot riding on its new tablet. In announcing the Nook Tablet, the company touted its new Nook Digital Shops, which can be found in its brick-and-mortar stores, as a way to provide consumers with better customer service than online retailer Amazon can provide.
But the key question, of course, is how the device itself performs. Here’s a look at some of the key features of the new Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet.
- Dimensions: The Nook Tablet, which sports an exterior that looks like the Nook Color, is 8.1 inches (206 millimeters) tall and 5 inches (127 millimeters) wide. Thickness is 0.48 inches (12 millimeters). The device weighs 14.1 ounces, which is a little less than a pound.
- Display: The Nook Tablet sports a 7-inch, high-resolution color touchscreen. Resolution is rated at 1024-by-600 pixels at 169 pixels per inch. To improve display clarity and reduce glare, the display is fully laminated with no air gaps. The device also has 6 font styles that are adjustable in 8 text sizes. Background colors, line and margin spacing can be changed as well.
- Brains & memory: Running the device is dual-core 1GHz TI OMAP4 chip backed by 1GB of RAM. The tablet has 16GB of built-in internal memory plus a memory card slot that is compatible with microSDs up to 32GB.
- Wireless features: Wireless connectivity is available through Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n). Users can also access free Wi-Fi service at all Barnes & Noble store locations. Supported e-mail services include POP and IMAP webmail, Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail and AOL.
- Battery life: The Nook Tablet rechargeable battery offers up to 11.5 hours of reading or 9 hours of video with wireless turned off. Charging time is about 3 hours.
- File support: The device supports an extensive amount of file formats. Documents supported are EPUB (including Adobe DRM or DRM free), PDF, XLS, DOC, PPT, TXT, DOCM, XLSM, PPTM, PPSX, PPSM, DOCX, XLX and PPTX. Video formats supported are MP4, Adobe Flash Player format, 3GP, 3G2 MKV, WEBM. Supported video codecs are H.264, MPEG-4, H.263 and VP8. Images that can be viewed in the device are JPG, GIF, PNG and BMP. Audio formats supported are MP3, MP4, AAC, AMR, WAV, OGG. Supported audio codecs are MP3, AAC, AMR, LPCM and OGG Vorbis.
- Nook Apps: As with other B&N devices, the Nook Tablet will support Nook Apps. Applications that come pre-loaded with the device are Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora internet radio, Chess, Crossword, Sudoku, Media Gallery, NOOK Friends and Email. Nook App development is a big priority for B&N, which is courting developers to create apps for its devices, claiming that the Nook storefront is the No. 1 Android-based application platform in terms of revenue channels, and the No. 2 platform overall.
- Other features: Functionality with Facebook and Twitter allows Nook Tablet users to connect with their buddies and share recommendations via the aforementioned social services. Users also can swap books with the LendMe feature. For cost-conscious consumers, B&N’s Nook Daily Find feature offers books at lower prices, along with a weekly Free Fridays selection.
With a curated store and more than 2.5 million books, Barnes & Noble has resources that many tablet makers don’t when it comes to competing with such heavy hitters as Apple and Amazon. But with competition truly heating up in the tablet space, B&N also has more challenges to face in this go around compared to the time it launched the Nook Color. The good news is that the Nook Tablet looks pretty solid based on its features so far. The question now is whether B&N has put together a good enough package to woo consumers away from its high-profile competitors and toward its Nook Tablet.
