Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet is Official, Launches November 17 for $249
Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet is Official, Launches November 17 for $249
Posted 11/07/2011 at 9:17am
| by Paul Lilly
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Barnes & Noble is banking on better hardware and strategic relationships with third-party content providers being enough to sway potential Kindle Fire buyers over to the upcoming Nook Tablet. Officially unveiled this morning at a press event in New York, B&N confirmed what we already knew via leaked internal documents, which is that the Nook Tablet will be in stores November 17 for $249.
B&N claims the Nook Tablet is the fastest, lightest tablet with the best in HD entertainment. It weighs 14.1 ounces and is armed with a 1GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, full IPS lamination to reduce reflection and glare, 16GB of storage, and a battery that's good for up to 11.5 hours of reading time or nine hours of video viewing.
"In Nook Tablet, we’ve created the best wireless media tablet in the portable 7-inch class. Nook Tablet’s VividView display has been designed to be the world’s finest screen for readability and viewing content. We’ve utilized that breakthrough display technology to bring consumers the largest digital catalog of color and interactive books, magazines, children’s books and high-quality apps through our Nook Store. Additionally, we’ve seamlessly integrated today’s top entertainment services like Netflix, Hulu Plus and Pandora in a product that’s powerful, easy-to-use, under a pound, and a tremendous value at only $249," said William Lynch, Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble.
B&N also lowered the price of its Nook Color to $199, matching that of Amazon's Kindle Fire, and said it will roll out its "largest software update ever" in December. Finally, B&N improved its Nook Simple Touch eReader with a new breakthrough E Ink display that's purportedly 25 percent faster than other eReaders, has better looking text, and boasts improved battery life, now available for a new low price of $99 "with no annoying ads."
You can pre-order the Nook Tablet now.
Image Credit: Barnes & Noble
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firefox91
November 07, 2011 at 10:07am
Well now this is interesting. For $50 more than the Kindle Fire, I appear to be getting more memory, more options to expand memory, a better display, bettery battery life, and a few other things. I am considering cancelling my Kindle Fire pre-order and going with the Nook Tablet now.
This is my first use of anything Android. Can I download apps to the Nook from anywhere (like the Andriod Market) or can I only get them through B&N?
jgrimoldy
November 07, 2011 at 10:35am
If this is anything like the original Nook Color, it will be very easy to hack. Off the shelf, it's likely that you'll be only able to get apps from B&N. Once you've rooted the tablet, you should be able to get apps from anywhere you want. The original Nook Color was also very easy to reset to factory default if needed. This new version will likely be the same.
Zoandar
November 07, 2011 at 10:26am
On the Android smartphones I have used installing apps from outside sources is pretty easy. There is a setting which by default blocks doing that, but it is simple to just enable installing from outside sources by changing the setting. Then you can download apps (usually compressed into a .apk file) from anywhere you trust. Once the file is on the device, just ' open' the file to install.
firefox91
November 07, 2011 at 12:07pm
Thanks for the info guys. One thing that stood out to me is that Amazon never said they would have Netflix as an installable app. I was just assuming it would be there. Another article pointed out how Netflix can be considered as a competative app to Amazon's movie downloads. I am not rolling the dice on them having Netflix support. I cancelled my pre-order with Amazon and I am going with the Nook. The fact that the Nook Color was easily rooted makes this all the more appealing.
iceman08
November 07, 2011 at 9:21am
nice. now, do I go with a Fire or Nook? better yet, do I decide to get an ereader when most texts before 2007 have been poorly scanned?
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