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Barnes and Noble release Nook Tablet iPod touch competitor

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Barnes and Noble announced their Nook Tablet today, a successor to their now $199 Nook Color.  The $249 dual core tablet is aimed squarely at the $199 Kindle Fire but has 10GB more (16GB total) storage and the ability to add up to 32GB via micro SD card.  It also has a superior screen to the Kindle and the popular Hulu Plus and of course Neflix for watching videos.  The app library is a much smaller  subset of the Android market, however it is curated much better so only quality apps are allowed in.

Although we hear it a lot, the Nook Tablet or the Kindle Fire aren’t really competitors to the iPad.  Realistically, if you have a budget for a $500-$830 iPad, you aren’t considering a $200 alternative … and vice versa.  Sure all are “tablets” but it is like comparing a netbook to a MacBook Pro.

If anything, these cheap 7-inch tablets are competition for the $188 iPod touch (though with increased portability, superior app and content ecosystem and cameras -that too is a stretch).  Price, being one of the biggest purchase considerations, puts these things more in line with the lower priced iPods.  For people who want a bigger screen and don’t consider the many other advantages to being in the Apple ecosystem a plus, these might make sense.

If you had a choice between the two, would you choose a $199/$249 Nook or a $199 Kindle Fire?

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