The low-cost tablet space is heating up ahead of what many expect to be an October unveiling of Apple’s (AAPL) much rumored iPad mini, and two new entries into this competitive space have just been announced. Barnes & Noble (BKS) on Wednesday took the wraps off its all new NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ tablets, and they take aim squarely at the 7-inch and 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD slates Amazon announced earlier this month. These new NOOKs pick up right where Barnes & Noble’s previous-generation tablets left off, but they offer a number of notable improvements over their predecessors — and over the competition as well.
Barnes & Noble’s new NOOK HD tablet competes directly with Amazon’s (AMZN) 7-inch Kindle Fire HD and Google’s (GOOG) Nexus 7. It features a 7-inch 1440 x 900-pixel high-definition display with a pixel density of 243 ppi — topping both the Kindle Fire HD and the Nexus 7, which are rated at 216 ppi — a dual-core TI OMAP4470 processor clocked at 1.3GHz, stereo speakers enhanced with SRS TruMedia audio (which sounded terrific and did not distort even at very high volumes) and a 4,050 mAh battery that manages to provide 10.5 hours of reading or 9 hours of HD video playback.
How does such a small battery last so long? Barnes & Noble executives were very proud of the company’s custom display technology, which took 9 months to develop. These panels aren’t found anywhere other than on the new NOOK HD tablets, and despite their power efficiency they are remarkably bright. Lined up next to a Kindle Fire HD and a Nexus 7, the NOOK HD’s display was in an entirely different class — the brightness and clarity are phenomenal, and the fully laminated display panel reduces glare and improves viewing angles.
At just 315 grams, the NOOK HD is also the lightest 7-inch tablet on the planet, but it doesn’t feel cheap at all. Quite the contrary, in fact. The weight seems perfect for prolonged reading and the soft-touch finish on the back of the device has a fantastic feel, just as it did on Barnes & Noble’s previous devices.
The NOOK HD+, also the lightest tablet in its class at 515 grams, sports a 9-inch display with better-than-1080p resolution. The 1920 x 1280-pixel panel features a pixel density of 256 ppi, which tops the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD and approaches Apple’s class leading 264-ppi Retina display on the iPad. Just like the NOOK HD, the display on the HD+ is very bright and remarkably vivid.
The hardware is also among the most solid I have seen on a 9-inch tablet. The soft-touch finish on the back of the slate is far more comfortable to hold than the aluminum on Apple’s iPad, and the tablet’s mid-frame and edges are made of magnesium. This adds a great look at feel, and it also makes the NOOK HD+ very sturdy, unlike cheap-feeling plastic tablets.
The same dual-core TI OMAP4470 processor that powers the 7-inch model is found in Barnes & Noble’s 9-inch tablet, but it’s clocked at a speedier 1.5GHz. Despite the faster clock speed and the larger full HD display, the NOOK HD+ is able to squeeze 10 hours of reading or 9 hours or high-definition video playback out of a 6,000 mAh battery.
Where hardware is concerned, Barnes & Noble’s new NOOK tablets are clear class leaders. With a massive 3 million-eBook library and ever-growing app, movie, TV show, newspaper and magazine catalogs, the content ecosystem is there as well. The big question mark here is software.
Barnes & Noble’s NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ tablets are based on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, but they feature a completely customized user interface and software suite. The software present on the units I tested was not final, and this was very apparent.
While functions like page-turning (wait until you see the fantastic animation effect Barnes & Noble created for turning pages) were impressively smooth, the software was full of glitches and scrolling was jittery. Barnes & Noble was very clear in stating that the software wasn’t final though, and I certainly hope the company smooths out its custom Android built ahead of launch.
There are plenty of great features baked into the NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ software though, including one that I personally have been waiting for years to see. Barnes & Noble’s new tablets include support for profiles that allow multiple users to share a single tablet using separate accounts. Home screen configurations and other data associated with each profile is hidden from other users, and profiles can be password protected. Adult users can also configure parental controls that prevent children from accessing certain content, and content or apps purchased with one user account can be made accessible across other accounts for no additional fee.
I am definitely impressed with what I have seen so far from the NOOK HD and NOOK HD+, and I’m looking forward to spending more time with the tablets closer to launch. If Barnes & Noble can manage to optimize the software experience so that it compliments the terrific hardware it managed to build, the new NOOKs may very well be the best eReader-tablet hybrids on the market.
Barnes & Noble’s NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ will both begin shipping in late October and in-store availability is slated for early November. The NOOK HD comes with either 8GB or 16GB of memory and costs $199 and $249, respectively, while the NOOK HD+ is available with 16GB of storage for $269 or 32GB of storage for $349. Both tablets also feature expandable memory slots for up to 64GB of additional storage per card. Barnes & Noble’s full press release follows below.
http://www.bgr.com/2012/09/26/nook-hd-release-date-hands-on/
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