Amazon’s Kindle Fire or Barnes and Noble’s Nook Tablet: Similar But Not Identical
Amazon's Kindle Fire and Barnes and Noble's Nook Tablet have made the tablet market much more interesting. The two tablets are sure to shake up a market that's used to Apple's iPad swatting down the competition. Both tablets are due to be released before the holidays with Amazon selling the Kindle Fire on Nov. 15 and Barnes and Noble set to put its Nook Tablet on sale on Nov. 17. So now consumers will have to make a difficult decision of what tablet to buy. Here are some of the strengths and weaknesses of each tablet that could make your decision easier.
In terms of hardware both the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet offer similar specs. They both have a 7-inch, 1024x600 color display touchscreen and a dual-core 1Ghz processor. They both run on customized versions of Google's Android 2.3 operating system and only have Wi-Fi connectivity. Their biggest difference is in their storage capacities. The Kindle Fire only has 8 Gb of onboard storage and no chance of expansion. The Nook Tablet on the other hand has 16 Gb of onboard memory and can be expanded to 32 Gb with its microSD slot.
The limited storage of the Kindle Fire will be a cause of concern for users but Amazon is banking that its offer of unlimited storage on the cloud will convince users who want more storage space. On the other hand if you're travelling and have no access to Wi-Fi the Kindle Fire's smaller storage will really be a deal breaker. If you want more storage and don't want to deal with online cloud services to keep your books or movies, then you might want to go with the Nook Tablet.
The biggest deciding factor over what tablet to get will probably be in the content each tablet can offer the user. Amazon clearly has the better of Barnes and Noble in this area because it offers a vast variety of content through Amazon's store. Users can even subscribe to Amazon Prime for $79 a year to access thousands of movies and TV shows. The service also offers free download of e-books to its Kindle Library.
For serious bookworms, Barnes and Noble will be a more enticing service because it offers some 2.5 million titles compare to Amazon's 1 million. Since Barnes and Noble doesn't have an in-house digital media service like Amazon, the company will rely on third-party service providers like Netflix and Hulu to provide TV shows and movies to Nook Tablet users.
While it may seem like both the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet are the same tablet their primary difference is in how you'll use it. They're both ideal for users who will only use their tablet to consume content. Ultimately, the choice really boils down to price. Amazon's Kindle Fire costs $199, which is cheaper than the Nook Tablet that sells for $249. Do you want to shell out an additional $50 for Barnes and Noble's content or will you be satisfied with Amazon?