Tweet
I pre-ordered a Kindle Fire for my wife about three weeks ago and it arrived yesterday. After looking at the Nook Tablet, I decided to drop by the local Barnes and Noble and see when they would be available. The Nook was supposed to be released tomorrow, but miraculously they had some in stock already so I picked one up for myself.
Now the wife and I use these tablets for two different things. She loves to read books, I use mine for watching movies on the planes. I do have some magazines loaded on the Nook as well as quite a few drawings for work in pdf format.
I use Vuse to acquire movies and with the "Vuse Plus" account it recognized my Nook and converted any media I downloaded to the correct format and even transferred it to the tablet for me. (I have not yet connected the Kindle to see if it is recognized, but with only 8 gig of storage I wouldn't want to load too many videos on it anyway) This is great for loading the SD card up with the latest flicks because I can just drag and drop the ones I want into the Nook and then walk away while the converting/transfer takes place. The movies look great on the Nook which is stated to have 9 hours of video play time on a full charge. This is yet to be witnessed.
So in my opinion if you just want an e-reader that can browse the web and check email get the Kindle Fire. It can stream most content without clogging up the 8 gig of storage.
If you need to store media on the tablet go for the Nook with its 16 gig of internal storage plus up to 32 gig of micro sd capability.
I really can't tell a big difference with the memory between the two, both are pretty snappy.
At any rate $199 or $249 is an awesome price for a quality tablet that can surf the web and support many apps. The size is great for traveling and they weigh very little for those looking to minimize travel weight. I think these guys are going to give the ipad a real run for thier money this holiday season.
Here are the technical specs for both:
Hardware
As far as the actual devices go, there is not much difference between the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet. They are roughly the same size, shape and weight. We give the edge here to the Fire because of its sleek black outer case as opposed to the Nook's grayish metallic one, but that's a minor quibble.
Specs
The Nook Tablet has 16 GB of storage to the Kindle Fire's 8 GB, which does account for the extra $50 you pay for the Nook. Even 8 GB is a decent amount of storage, though. The Nook Tablet also has 1 GB of RAM to the Fire's 512 MB. They have the same processor.
Programs
One big advantage the Kindle has over the Nook is that Amazon offers streaming TV and video. Some are free, some you pay for - unless you get an Amazon Prime account (roughly $6.50 a month), which lets you have access to the movies and TV Amazon offers for "free." The Nook Tablet does not offer those things. It will have a Netflix app, but you do need a netflix account.
Internet
Both devices require a WiFi signal. The previously Kindles were able to use AT&T's 3G network to download books and periodicals, but since the Kindle Fire features all the internet access of a tablet, you now need to be able to connect to a network.
Comment