Kindle Fire vs Nook Tablet

The two book giants are going head to head again over their respective tablets. The Nook eReader gives the Kindle Touch a run for its money with many people saying the screen is superior but the Nook Color is neither here nor there when it comes to competing with the Kindle Fire because it doesn’t have the same software support and has a lower technical specification.

The Nook Tablet though is worth sitting up and taking notice of because for just $50 more you are getting more tablet for your money – but will you need it?

Both tablets come with the same Texas Instruments dual core processor clocked at 1 GHz, it could have been clocked faster but we think that would have reduced the battery life too much. They both have similar 7 inch screens which have 1024x600 resolutions with 169 pixels per inch. This small form factor makes them easier to hold for longer durations than a larger tablet like the iPad or Galaxy Tab and makes them more suitable for lounging around watching a movie.

It’s at this point the $250 price tag of the Nook Tablet starts to become apparent because the hardware is slightly better than the Kindle Fire. First off the Nook Tablet comes with 1 GB RAM compared to the Fire’s 512 MB, we’re not too sure why this is since both devices are consumption tablets rather than creative tablets and there doesn’t seem to be much need for the extra 512 MB except for bragging rights, and hey, if the iPad 2 can make do with 512 MB RAM what does Barnes & Noble know that Apple doesn’t?

One reason developers and hackers have been keen to get their hands on the Nook Tablet is because it comes with 16 GB of storage, which again is double what comes on the Kindle Fire. More storage means more music, videos and apps can be stored and the reason the developers and hackers are excited is because it means they can hack the Nook Tablet to be a cheap but highly function tablet comparable with the Motorola Xoom or Galaxy Tab.

The addition of the Micro SD card on the Nook Tablet also allows for extra storage space. The reason that the Nook Tablet has more storage space is probably because B&N don’t have the cloud computing infrastructure like Amazon, so where Amazon encourages its customers to upload everything to the cloud, B&N customers have to rely on the onboard storage.

Both devices are notable for the hardware which they lack such as a camera, GPS, compass, Bluetooth, accelerometer and 3G which is probably all designed to keep the costs down, but the Nook Tablet does have a microphone which allows parents to narrate a book and the child can play it back at any time – which is a nice and cute feature offered by B&N.

Many different tech blogs have done tear downs of both devices and one thing that is apparent is that while Amazon have barely touched the default designs and circuitry, the Nook Tablet has done some extensive under the hood modifications, possibly to squeeze as much power out of the hardware as possible. This probably explains why B&N claim the Nook Tablet has a battery life of over 11 hours compared to Kindle Fire’s 8 hours.

So far you might be thinking that the Nook Tablet is beating the Kindle Fire hands down and in terms of hardware you are right – but you are paying the extra $50 for that! But the real trump card for the Kindle Fire is the access to Amazon’s vast media library and cloud storage.

On this front the Nook Tablet simply can’t compete and since both are essentially consumption devices (OK, hackers might be able to modify the Nook Tablet but they are not normal users!) if you want the biggest and best choice of books, movies, TV shows, apps and music then you can’t get better than the Kindle Fire.