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The tablet field is one of tech's hottest battlegrounds,
with new players and new devices popping up every week. The latest is Barnes
& Noble's new Nook HD line, which offers beefed-up hardware and a new
9-inch tablet size.
The 7-inch Nook HD starts at $199 for a 8 GB model, and the 9-inch
Nook HD+ starts at $269 for 16 GB. Both tablets begin shipping in late October
and are slated to hit store shelves in early November. (Nook's older 7-inch
Nook Tablet recently had its price tag cut to $179. The company's
black-and-white Nook e-readers sell for $99 to $139.)
New features include a Nook Video streaming service, a "scrapbook"
feature that lets users save content like magazine pages, and the option to
create device profiles for different family members. The Nook HD line runs on Google's (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android operating system, and its
homescreen design is much more
streamlined than that of the previous Nook tablet.
streamlined than that of the previous Nook tablet.
Barnes & Noble (BKS, Fortune 500) took shots at two of its main tablet rivals, Apple and Amazon, in
its press release announcing the HD line: "[The HD+ is] nearly half the
cost of the leading large-format tablet, [and] both products deliver an amazing
value for customers, with no annoying ads."
That "leading large format tablet" is of course Apple's (AAPL, Fortune 500) 9.7-inch-screen iPad, which retails
for $499. The "annoying ads" tablets are Amazon's (AMZN, Fortune 500) Kindle
Fire line, which
offer a price discount to customers who agree to get ads on some screens. (The
Kindle Fire price tag runs from $159 for a 7-inch version to $499 for an 9-inch
4G LTE tablet with HD.)
Barnes & Noble has fallen behind both rivals. Apple captured
more than two-thirds of the tablet market in the second quarter, according to
iSuppli's most recent data. Amazon took the No. 3 spot, behind Samsung, with
4%. Barnes & Noble came in at No.5 with 2%.
"No one can ignore what Apple does," Barnes & Noble
CEO William Lynch told CNNMoney this week. But at a pre-announcement demo with
journalists in New York City on Monday, it was clear that Barnes & Noble is
aiming squarely at Amazon's Kindle Fire -- especially the newly announced and
similarly named Kindle Fire HD.
Staffers used the Fire to extol Nook's virtues, setting up
side-by-side comparisons on screen, size and weight: "See how [Fire] casts
a sort of shadow over the screen?"
"Feel how much heavier and wider [the Fire] is," another
suggested. "It's much tougher to hold."
Lynch took his own shot at Amazon. "Jeff [Bezos, Amazon's CEO]
says the Kindle Fire is the best media tablet at any price, which is a joke
given the specs," he said.
Barnes
& Noble aimed to improve those specs with its own Nook HD. At first glance,
the most obvious enhancement over the older Nook line is the HD's crisper
screen. The 7-inch Nook HD features a screen resolution of 1440 x 900 and
supports 720p video; Barnes & Noble says that's 25% more pixels than the
Kindle Fire HD. The 9-inch version of the new Nook is 1920 x 1280 (which falls
short of the iPad's resolution) and plays 1080p video.
To take advantage of the improved screen resolution, Barnes &
Noble is launching Nook Video. Users can buy or stream content in either HD or
standard definition, and a representative said the prices will be
"comparable" to other a la carte services.
Nook Video will also be available as an app for use across several devices.
As before, the Nook HD features a "curated" app store and
access to Barnes & Noble's catalog of more than 3 million books. The 7-inch
Nook HD weighs 11.1 ounces, and the 9-inch model is about 7 ounces more. Each
supports microSD card expansion up to 64 GB.
Unlike many of its rivals, the Nook HD doesn't have a camera. Lynch
shrugged that off in this week's demo.
"When you're making a device light and inexpensive, you have
to make decisions," he said. "We felt like 99.9% of people who own a
tablet will have a smartphone in their pocket with a better camera."
Lynch also talked up Barnes & Noble's retail advantage: It can
display the Nook HD in its 700 bookstores and at several stores owned by its
big-box retail partners like Best Buy (BBY, Fortune 500), Target (TGT,Fortune 500) and Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500). Amazon, on
the other hand, has tons of website traffic but doesn't own any
bricks-and-mortar stores. Target and Wal-Mart recently announced they
won't sell Amazon Kindles anymore.
Barnes & Noble may have Amazon squarely in its crosshairs, but
Amazon and Apple aren't the only tablet makers in town. Samsung is comfortably
ensconced in the No. 2 tablet market spot, and Google began shipping its Nexus
7 earlier this summer. Microsoft is pushing the Windows 8 on its ownSurface
tablet, and several of its hardware partners are expected to
create devices that run on the Windows 8 operating system.
@CNNMoneyTech
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