As we all know at this point, Amazon announced their first proper tablet, the Kindle Fire, at the end of September. Based on Android and built to tie into the collection of services that Amazon has built, there was a lot to like about it, especially its $199 price tag. Much was made of it as an iPad competitor, but in size and price, it more directly competes with the Barnes & Noble Nook Color. Amazon had little to say at the time about what kind of apps the Kindle Fire would run, but the general assumption was that the Kindle Fire would be largely limited to Amazon's cloud services for media consumption. Even so, the Kindle Fire was very definitely a media consumption tablet that also acted as an e-reader while the Nook Color was an e-reader that could also run some tablet apps; it wasn't set to be much of a competition.
This week Barnes & Noble announced the Nook Color's successor, the Nook Tablet. The Nook Tablet is priced at $249, but it has a more powerful processor, more memory, and a predecessor to drop to the $199 price point with the Kindle. What's more, the Nook Tablet is a media consumption tablet in the vein of the Kindle Fire, but with the pledged support of some very big names.
Barnes and Noble just announced its Nook Tablet with plenty of content coming along for the ride. Most notable is Netflix integration, described by B&N as the deepest on any tablet with Netflix recommendations getting pushed to your homescreen. B&N calls the 7-inch tablet an "unrivaled portable content machine" and backs up the claim with preloaded Pandora and Hulu Plus services (and free trials). Flixster with UltraViolet is also coming soon with newly released movies and TV shows from Warner Bros. and others.
The Verge
The Kindle Fire remained a formidable entry to the tablet market, but for a short time it appeared that Barnes & Noble might have fielded a true champion. That is, until Amazon decided to share a bit more about the Kindle Fire.
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