The low-cost Android tablet space is heating up. And just in time for the holidays.
Barnes & Noble have unveiled the Nook Tablet, a beefed-up follow-up to the popular Nook Color
ebook reader/tablet. The Nook Color also remains in the company's
arsenal, but with a lower price. The Nook Color is available now, while
the Nook Tablet is available for pre-order and ships.
Amazon, meanwhile, last month took the wraps of its first color touch-screen ereader/tablet, the Kindle Fire,
The big draw with these tablets is a tight focus on media consumption
including video, music, and, most importantly books. The Kindle Fire
taps into Amazon's massive book store, newsstand, and MP3 and video
stores, while the cloud-accelerated Silk browser promises to deliver
speedy Web browsing. The Nook devices offer on-device access to millions
of books and magazines in the B&N book store, and the Nook Tablet
is pre-loaded with Netflix and Hulu Plus for video.
It's unclear how many apps will be
available on each of these tablets, but both Amazon and B&N promise
that you'll be able to find your favorites. The Amazon Android App store
is already considered a viable alternative to the Android Marketplace
on other Android devices.
Another huge selling point: Price. The
Kindle Fire and the Nook Color both slide in under the $200 mark ($199
each). The Nook Tablet, at $249, is still relatively inexpensive when
you compare its price with current Android tablets from major
manufacturers. B&N is hoping to justify the extra 50 bucks with some
hardware upgrades, including twice the RAM and double the integrated
storage of the Kindle Fire.
Until we get the Kindle Fire and the
B&N Nook Tablet into the PCMag Lab for testing, take a look at how
the hardware specs stack up in the chart below.
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