Today the new nook Tablet was announced! What - wasn't the nook Color a tablet? Well, yes and no...

The nook Color is an Android tablet with a customized interface that focuses on reading material (books, magazines, etc). It has an app store the is powered by the B&N website (not the Android Market). The nook Color has been hugely popular by people wanting a cheap tablet device that typically install another version of Android over the top of the B&N version. So with the nook Color why a nook Tablet? I'm going to make some educated guesses ...

Reason #1: Tablet is a popular word.  The word is talking about tablets, and B&N has one but it's been considered by most as an eReader. The new device is capitalizing on the tablet craze. While more powerful it's no more a tablet than the nook Color in my opinion.

Reason #2: Multimedia. The nook Color doesn't have all the power to stream HD video (some overclock/hack the nook to boost it's performance). The new nook Tablet has a dual core processor and 1GB of RAM - not to mention a special Netflix app that is supposed to be "over the top" compared to other netflix tablet apps.

Reason #3: Kindle Fire. B&N now has a device to serve as a platform for streaming video and video downloads. The new Kindle is a multimedia tablet and the nook Color was an "eReader" (in theory). B&N is planning on staying in the eReader/Tablet business and they don't want to fall behind!

The nook tablet is the same dimensions as the nook Color, same screen size, and the same design (but different shade of gray). The device is lighter than the nook Color (which is a good thing). According to B&N the battery isn't smaller they have just optimized the device for better power optimization (10+ hours).

So is the nook Tablet worth the upgrade?  If you are using the nook device as a tablet and want to consume multimedia content it might be - especially if you are trying to pick between them ($199 versus $249). I don't think it's a worthwhile upgrade for nookColor users that primary use it as an eReader. The device is really just a nice hardware upgrade - that's it.

In other news the nook Touch is now $99 and has an upgrade to make it faster and increase the already great battery life. If you are looking for just reading books (not watch movies or read magazines) I love my nook Touch. :)

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0 #6 Thx1326 2011-12-29 21:58

The new Nook Tablet has been very deceptively presented. Out of the 16gb internal mem only about 1GB is available for your storage. The rest is reserved for B&N purchases and downloads. So if you have lots of books already - not a good situation. Loading them to the SD card slot is slow and painful and takes forever to index. SD card books are not as easily accessible like the internal books. It's a shame they are so greedy with the reserved memory - guess it's time to root.

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0 #5 lala 2011-12-29 15:57

I have the nook tablet and it is INCREDIBLE i love it soo much its like a second computer.... its internet is actually faster, no problem with wifi at all i recomend it

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0 #4 Aurickle 2011-12-18 18:54

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Well I am sending my Nook Tablet back for the simple reason that it can NOT CONNECT to wifi connections that require a TOS Portal sign in page (web redirect). This issues prevents the Nook Tablet from being used in public libraries, hotels, McDonalds, etc, it just hangs at the "testing" stage. B&N Fail :cry:

That's sounds unusual since my nooktablet prompts me to a login screen without even redirecting me to a splash page. I tried it at Strbucks today and my noook color would always redirect but now it doesn't. I consider this an improvement. Maybe McDonalds has a different system???

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+1 #3 2011-11-25 11:33

Demand more for your Nook. Check out the "I Want My Nook Dock!" petition at:

http://ow.ly/7F5um

Sign it and help us do more with our Nooks!!

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0 #2 2011-11-22 21:04

Well I am sending my Nook Tablet back for the simple reason that it can NOT CONNECT to wifi connections that require a TOS Portal sign in page (web redirect). This issues prevents the Nook Tablet from being used in public libraries, hotels, McDonalds, etc, it just hangs at the "testing" stage. B&N Fail

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0 #1 2011-11-09 15:25

looks like a great step for B & N. Really looking forward to some reviews after the 17th November

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