Barnes & Noble has unveiled its latest tablet and critics are giving the gadget good reviews.
Mashable Tech's Peter Pachal said the 7-inch Nook HD and 9-inch Nook HD+, which feature large HD screen, cannot be beat, in part due to its price: starting at $199.
Both tablets have expandable memory, up to 64 GB, and both have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. No 3G, no 4G, no GPS.
Pachal said if Barnes & Noble scrimped on any components in the new Nook to keep the price down, it doesn't show up on the spec sheet - the lack of cameras notwithstanding. The Nook HD+'s battery life is rated slightly less than the iPad's, but so far Amazon hasn't revealed what the Kindle Fire HD's is, the one hole in the comparison.
Mashable took Barnes & Nobles' rated specs that the company released and put them side by side with Apple's iPad and Amazon's Kindle Fire HD 8.9.
Business Week Technology said the Nook's best feature is its "discoverability."
"We're Barnes & Noble, and books is one of our main categories," Theresa Horner, B&N's vice president of digital content, said at a briefing on Tuesday. I'd say it's the main category-but either way, the company is using reading and recommendations as a selling point for the new tablets.
Business Week reported that John Basanese, director of software QA engineering, said the Nook will compete with Apple's iPad by being marketed as "the lightest, lowest full HD tablet ever."
The Nook tablets will be available in October, but can be pre-ordered starting today.
To see a more detailed compariseon click here.