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The Android tablet market is about to get a little more crowded with Barnes & Noble officially taking the wraps off their newly upgraded Nook tablet line this evening. Announced moments ago were Barnes & Noble’s all new 7-inch Nook HD (8GB $200, 16GB $230) and 9-inch Nook HD+ (16GB $270, 32GB $300). Competing less with traditional full featured Android tabs or the iPad, the B&N takes a cue from Amazon’s playbook, focusing instead on affordable pricing and virtual content displayed on gorgeous high-def screens.
Specs for the 7-inch Nook HD features a 1440×900 resolution display, while the 9-inch Nook HD+ comes with 1920×1280, and both feature 1GB of RAM and a TI OMAP 4470 processor clocked at 1.3GHz and 1.5GHz, respectively. Both models also feature expandable memory up to 64GB, WiFi, Bluetooth, but no 3G/4G or GPS.
The main draw for the new Nooks, however, isn’t in their specs, but in the affordable access to content they provide. Think of them more like glorified e-readers than anything. Barnes & Noble recently announced their all new Nook Video service for buying or renting HD movies (much like Amazon) and although the tabs feature Ice Cream Sandwich as their OS, users will be subject to Barnes & Noble’s app store as opposed to the Google Play Store.
Going back to the OS, it’s been heavily modified to the point where you’d be hard pressed to find even a hint of Google’s Holo UI buried in the OS. The Nook features the family-friendly parental control options and multiple user accounts, making it easy to share the tab with mom, dad, and little Timmy. There are also quite a few The homescreen (launcher) has also been “dumbed down” similar to the Kindle Fire HD to highlight recently used apps, books, magazines and shortcuts. It’s very clean looking overall, but the aging OMAP can be seen chugging along in a variety of hands-on videos, with not even a stick of butter to smooth things along.
For those interested pre-orders are set to begin first thing Wednesday morning, with shipping set towards the end of October (UK models late November). As for the older Nook models, those are on their way out, with Barnes & Noble mentioning they are no longer in production, but no word on a price drop.
I am a bit impressed with the 1440×900 screen resolution. That’s a bold move. But it is still a nook, and not a Nexus. Oh well.
They HD+ has a 1280p display.
Yes but I am still more surprised by the 1440×900 on the lower end model since it’s such a first for Android tablets, 1920×1280 just seems like an awkward aspect ratio.
It is a 3:2 aspect ratio and the reason they give for using it is for Books and Magazines and I would assume PDFs would be able to use it better then something like 4:3
It’s the regular 1920×1200 resolution for 10″ tablets. Just 80 more pixels on one side.
Going to come with a locked down bootloader just like the Nook Tablet before it and the New Kindle Fires do. That is going to suck since the Barnes and Noble App store sucks in comparison to Amazons and Googles Play store
Nook Tablet might have an encrypted bootloader, but it can still be rooted and tweaked and have GApps put on it. That’s what im posting this from, rooted NTab running GO Launcher and full access to Google Play.
I have the same Nook Tablet running CM7 and who is to say that B&N havent closed the hole that was used to allow this on the Nook Tablet HD?
Even with the coming vid on demand, Nook still doesn’t have the ecosystem of Amazon or Google. BN is always playing catch up but never seems to gain much ground. I don’t know how long they can keep doing that.
Both the Nook and Kindle Fire HD are premiering “Video Services” but aren’t providing HDMI in Full 1080p HD – like the new Android tablet the Novo 7 Flame does, which goes for an amazing $189 at a site in the US called TabletSprint – overall, there’s a lot of features missing on the Nook, Kindle and Nexus 7 tablets – compared to the Ainol Electronics Novo 7 Flame – such as dual cameras – 5 MegaPixel Rear camera & 2MP Webcam, Wifi, Bluetooth & an option for 3G and more… why can’t the big players give us more?
The tablet is 9.5″. Not the same thing. Otherwise you might as well call the 9.7″ iPad a “9” tablet”.
Timmeah!
Nothing beats the Kindle Fire, they way behind. Amazon prime, and Mp3 store is a big selling point for me.
Dual-core 1.5 GHz for the 1920×1280 HD+? I wonder if it has enough graphic and processing power to push that luxury display.