Barnes & Noble NOOK Tablet Pro Reviews

Beyond the ability to run a fair bit of media from an external microSD card, nearly everything else about the Nook Tablet experience is either adequate or worse compared to other seven-inch options like the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire. From the meager app offerings to the clunky UI and cumbersome build, it's a device that feels significantly older than it really is at this point. Surely Barnes & Noble has something more advanced on the horizon, but for now, the only users we can see even considering a Nook device like this are those already so entrenched in the Nook reading ecosystem who wish only to occasionally surf the web, check email, or use apps like Netflix and Angry Birds. More advanced needs should be pursued with more advanced tablets, even at the $200 level.

If you’re looking for a tablet hand-built around reading, but want access to some extra features like email, kids books, magazines, comic books, a Web browser, apps, Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, and some games, then this is for you. The Nook Tablet 16GB is a much better tablet than the Nook Color and outshines the Kindle Fire in performance. For $250, you currently can’t do better. Things always change, but right now, Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet is still a compelling, competitive e-reader tablet.

Taken by itself, it’s hard to not like the Nook Tablet for $250. It continues to be a great piece of hardware: the screen is beautiful, the fresh internals make it quicker than ever before, and the price makes some of its flaws (the charging issue, storage allocation, no tabs) somewhat forgivable. But here comes the however... the Kindle Fire is $50 cheaper and provides a better ecosystem of multimedia content and applications. Sure, the Nook Tablet has streaming services like Netflix and Pandora and some handpicked apps in its store, but Amazon’s offering way more for less cost on that front. (Of course, if you can spend a bit more on an Android tablet like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 or an iPad, you’ll get it all, but those are really in a different tablet category now.) B&N’s improved specs and slight tweaks make it a better value than the $200 Color, but both of them are priced too high to take on the Fire’s content offering. But hey, thanks to some techies, the app selection on the Tablet’s already improving, which seems to just put B&N back, well, where it was a year ago.

The NOOK Tablet isn't a totally brand new device; it's more of an incremental upgrade. It has some cool new features, such as a faster processor and twice the memory in a slightly lighter package, plus a microphone to record your own narration for children's books and support for HD video with Hulu and Netflix, existing NOOK Color owners might not find enough reasons to upgrade since the NOOK Color is barely a year old at this point. For new users who are considering their first tablet purchase, and for whom the iPad isn't an option due to the much higher price tag, the NOOK Tablet is more compelling. With the addition of Hulu and Netflix, the NOOK Tablet has become a much more capable entertainment device, as opposed to the eReader that does a bit more, which is how I originally described the NOOK Color when it was first released. The main question is whether to choose a NOOK Tablet or a Kindle Fire has been addressed here. The NOOK Tablet actually comes out ahead when you're looking at the specs, and it performed well in all of my tests. It's worthy of your consideration, whether you're new to the eReader game, upgrading from an eInk model, or just looking for an inexpensive Android tablet.

Though the Nook Tablet lacks the flexibility of a full-featured tablet, it excels at reading, and it offers a smattering of solid streaming media services. For those reasons alone, the Nook Tablet edges out the Kindle Fire, by a hair. The Kindle Fire, not surprisingly, has tighter integration with Amazon's storefront services, which makes getting music, movies, and TV easier than doing so on the Nook Tablet.

Ultimately, this is a pretty tight race between the two devices. Spec-wise, the Nook Tablet has the Kindle Fire beat, but between Amazon's pricing and suite of service, the Kindle comes out ahead on this one, if only just barely.

The market was already crowded well before Barnes & Noble announced the Nook Tablet, a situation that certainly didn't improve for the company with the announcement of the Kindle Fire. Anyone eyeing the Nook Tablet either as a gift or for themselves will almost certainly be cross checking it with Amazon's new much discussed slate. And then there's the fact that the Nook's predecessor didn't actually go away with the announcement of the new device -- rather, it got cheaper and better. At $249, the Nook Tablet also costs a full $50 more than those products, a difference that's not negligible when we're talking about budget devices. The words "under $200" mean a lot to shoppers. Of course, you get some decided advantages along with that premium, including more RAM, great video, a microSD slot and attention paid to smaller things, like the built-in mic, which lets users do things like recording narration for kids books. Amazon, on the other hand, offers up a smaller form factor, price and better proprietary media options. There's really no clear winner here, but with the addition of two now solid products to the ever-expanding world of tablets, there's an even greater chance that the consumer will get precisely what they're looking for.

Separated by a mere $50, one can spend a lot of time juggling why one is better than the other, but after spending some time with the two, we think that the Amazon Kindle Fire simply offers the most bang for the buck – and even better, it’s the cheaper of the two! Yes, the Nook Tablet has a better display, expandable storage and more RAM, but when it comes down to actually using the device, there’s nothing too major that makes it the better performer. Actually, it’s Amazon’s extensive ecosystem surrounding multimedia content and third party apps that wins us over above all things – not only does it deepen the tablet’s functionality, but it will seemingly appease those who are already heavily invested in Amazon’s services. We also expect the Kindle Fire to sell better, and to receivе better support from 3rd party developers. On the other hand, the Nook is better in terms of hardware and its biggest drawback – the apps ecosystem - is rather easily solved, once you port the Amazon Appstore to it.

With a fantastic eReading experience, the best selection of interactive children's books, and a newsstand chock-full of magazines, the $249 Nook Tablet is the ultimate color eReader. We prefer the display on this device to the Fire, and we experienced less lag in everyday use. But with a weak selection of apps, lackluster audio, and no offline video or audio options yet, the Nook Tablet falls behind the $199 Fire in those areas. Users looking to do real multitasking, lots of e-mail, and superior web surfing and social networking should opt for a 7-inch tablet with Android 3.2 Honeycomb such as the Acer Iconia Tab A100 or the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 Plus. Those who aren't planning to play videos or use the Read and Record feature should consider the $199 Nook Color, because it runs the same software, has the same screen, and sports a nearly identical design. But you'll have to be willing to live with a slower processor, half the storage, and no microphone. However, if you want the market's best eReader with benefits, buy the Nook Tablet.

The Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet is the best small tablet for reading books and magazines, but falls short with multimedia.

On paper the Barnes & Noble NOOK Tablet looks like a tough sell. It costs $50 more than a Kindle Fire, offers access to fewer apps, and doesn’t include its own music or movie stores. But the NOOK Tablet is a great little tablet in its own right and it also feels better in your hands, has a microSD card slot for expansion, and twice the RAM. It feels better than the Kindle Fire. I chalk part of that up to the additional RAM, and part of it to software.

With more storage and a growing app store, the Nook Tablet is a worthy -albeit slightly more expensive - competitor to the Kindle Fire.

While B&N clearly missed a few opportunities to forge ahead of the pack, these omissions were trade-offs that were likely made in the name of achieving the Nook Tablet's attractive price. And attractive it is: at $249, Nook Tablet is a veritable bargain compared with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 Plus and the Toshiba Thrive 7".

Should you get the $249 Nook Tablet or $199 Kindle Fire? For that extra $50, you get the Tablet’s supposedly superior display, dedicated apps for Netflix and Hulu Plus, free in-person technical support from any Barnes & Noble store, and a few extra quirks like being able to record your reading of children’s books for your kids to play back later. But really, it probably amounts to how much you use Amazon and its services like its MP3 store or Amazon Prime video. Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch summed up how the Nook Tablet compares to the Kindle Fire by saying it was “more open.” If reading, Web browsing, Netflix, email and Angry Birds are the main things you want a tablet for, the new Nook Tablet is your winner.