Today in New York City, Barnes & Noble introduced the $249 Nook Tablet, an updated version of its 7" Android tablet, and a slew of software updates to its existing products while slashing their prices. In the process, B&N's CEO slammed almost all of the hardware Amazon offers as inadequate and poorly designed. It's a somewhat strange tactic for a company that was also proudly proclaiming that it had the best-selling Android tablet on the market, but B&N is clearly a bit concerned by the recent Amazon product introductions.
B&N was a relative latecomer to the e-reader market, and its original Nook was a somewhat awkward hybrid of an eInk display and a small color screen that helped control it. Since then, however, the company has split its product line, providing an eInk-based Simple Touch and the Nook Color, a 7" color tablet, with the latter beating the Kindle Fire to market by a considerable margin. Although it is Android based, the Nook provides a limited experience, with no access to the official app store. Still, as B&N CEO WIlliam Lynch proudly proclaimed, it became the best-selling Android tablet on the market.
The Nook Color will remain on sale, but it will now be joined by the Nook Tablet, which was introduced today. Priced at $249, the new model will feature some excellent specs: a 1GHz dual core processor, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage, with a further 32GB available via an SD card slot, all packaged with the same screen that the Color model featured. It will also have a significantly updated version of the customized version of Android Gingerbread used by the existing tablet, although that will be made available for existing Color users.
All of these specs were used as clubs to beat on Amazon during the product introduction. The Fire's stats—half the RAM and Flash memory, shorter battery life, heavier weight—were all highlighted for criticism. In fact, Lynch said that, to rush the Fire to market, Amazon used the same reference design and manufacturer that put together the Blackberry Playbook (although that hardware was generally well received, so it's not clear that this is a negative). Given the time spent on Amazon's offerings, it would be tempting to think that the Nook Tablet was rushed to market, but it will be in stores by next week, so clearly this has been in the works for a while.
Beyond the hardware, B&N spent a lot of time on its software and content. Lynch argued that the "Kindle Fire is a vending machine for Amazon's services," contrasting that with B&N's approach, which relies on Netflix and Hulu for video, Pandora and a handful of others for music, and so on. When it comes to content, the company now offers 2.5 million eBooks, and has a large collection of magazines, children's book, graphic novels and comics, and supports third party content through a ePub and PDF renderer.
Most of those new features will be made available on the Nook Color, as the updated operating system will be pushed over WiFi to existing tablet owners. It will come preinstalled on new purchases of the Color, which will see its price drop to $199.
The company still doesn't plan on opening up the table for use with Google's app store. Although developers are anxious to get access to its audience—sales figures for new intros are apparently excellent—B&N is intent on exercising control over what shows up on its tablets.
The company's eInk reader, the Simple Touch, also saw a bit of an update today. It's now got the most recent eInk screen, which is 25 percent fater with refreshes than previous models. That's been paired with a new rendering engine that's designed to improve text readability and speed. As a result, page turns have dropped to 450 milliseconds. Along with the new screen comes a better battery that stretches reading life out to 150 hours. The renderer will be made available to existing owners; the new hardware will see its price drop to $99.
All these prices are a bit more than Amazon's offerings, but B&N argued you're getting what you pay for. The ad-free Simple Touch is cheaper than Amazon's ad-free version, and its Tablet comes with more memory, storage, battery life, and a far better screen (at least according to Lynch). And, if price is really a concern, the Color will remain on sale.
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