Is the 8GB Nook Tablet worth your $200?

There's a new line in the sand drawn for 7-inch tablet pricing, and that number is $199.

Barnes & Noble and Amazon were already locked in a fierce rivalry in the "bargain tablet" space with the $249 Nook Tablet and the $199 Kindle Fire. Barnes & Noble delivered better specs for that $50 premium (double the RAM, double the storage, and a microSD expansion slot). But now B&N has removed the price difference between the two products by releasing a new step-down Nook Tablet that levels the playing field on both specs--halving the internal storage … Read more

New $199 Nook Tablet to compete with Fire

Barnes & Noble has Amazon's Kindle Fire directly in its sights. Its latest ammunition: a $199 Nook Tablet with 8GB of memory.

The new version of the Nook Tablet--$50 cheaper and with half the memory of the original--now matches the Kindle Fire in price and memory specs. The book retailer hopes the lower price will make it more of a rival to Amazon's tablet, which has established itself as the No. 2 player behind Apple's iPad. Amazon has attracted customers through a lower-end price and a decent selection in its online store.

Barnes & Noble … Read more

Barnes & Noble reportedly readying 8GB Nook Tablet

Barnes & Noble is prepping a new version of its Nook Tablet to better compete against Amazon's Kindle Fire.

The book retailer will launch an 8-gigabyte version of its tablet through Wal-Mart on Wednesday, according to The Verge.

The Nook Tablet made some noise after its launch as part of a new wave of affordable tablets better suited to competing with the higher end iPad from Apple. But while the Kindle Fire has sold well and drawn much of the attention of the consumer and media, the Nook Tablet hasn't seen the same level of adoption. … Read more

Author Solutions dances into the DIY e-book market with Booktango

With the boom in e-readers, self-publishing has become big business, and Author Solutions, one of the largest self-publishers in the U.S., has entered the DIY e-book market in a big way with Booktango.

Whether Booktango should be called an "e-book generating app" or "self-publishing platform" is hard to say, but it basically provides a free and simple way to upload your manuscript, edit it for proper formatting, then automatically serve it up to various e-bookstores, including Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and iBooks.

On the surface, Booktango, which bears the "beta" tag, looks fairly slick … Read more

Kindle Fire vs. Nook Tablet: How to choose

Editors' note: This article was originally posted November 23, 2011. We've added some material and updated it on February 24, 2012, based on further use of the products and the introduction of Barnes & Noble's 8GB Nook Tablet.

Now that the Amazon Kindle Fire and the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet both have a few months under their belts, we're taking another look at these two budget-price tablets.

Even after a handful of software updates from both manufacturers, we're still awarding the Nook Tablet a slightly higher rating, thanks largely to its hardware advantages: a better … Read more

Report: New Nook coming this spring

The New York Times today published a long piece about Barnes & Noble taking on Amazon in the "fight of its life." Buried in the middle of the two-page article is a small mention of engineers "putting the final touches on their [Barnes & Noble's] fifth e-reading device, a product that executives said would be released sometime this spring."

No details were offered beyond that, with a Barnes & Noble spokesperson declining to comment further. But the obvious question is what is it?

Another tablet, perhaps a larger model (think iPad size but with a $… Read more

Nook Color gets major software update, adds Netflix streaming

Call it an early holiday gift or just making good on a promise, but Barnes & Noble has just released an expected software update for Nook Color owners that adds many of the features now found in the company's step-up model, the $249 Nook Tablet.

What does the update, which Barnes & Noble is calling the "largest ever for the device," add?

Well, beyond some "ongoing performance improvements," here are the highlights:

Access to popular movies and TV shows streamed through Netflix. New Flixster app (allows you to access digital movies and TV shows on … Read more

What's the best Nook Tablet case?

The other day I did a best cases and covers roundup for the Kindle Fire and a few readers asked for some equal blog time for the Nook Tablet and suggested I make some case recommendations.

Well, Barnes & Noble makes a lot of nice cases for the Nook Tablet and Nook Color (the devices are the same size, though the Tablet is a bit lighter), but like with the Fire, I'm only interested in cases that convert into a stand. After all, the Nook Tablet is a "media" tablet, and Netflix looks really good on it, so why shouldn't you be able to prop it up properly? … Read more

Nook Touch 'limited edition' $79 on Black Friday

The picture says it all on this one.

On Black Friday, Barnes & Noble will be selling its highly-rated Nook Simple Touch for $79. That's a $20 price drop and matches the price of Amazon's entry-level non-touch, ad-supported Kindle With Special Offers. The Nook Simple Touch has no ads.

The company is calling it a "Limited Edition," and while it doesn't seem any different from the $99 model that's on sale now, on second glance the border/edging is white instead of black (the new color scheme has been confirmed by Barnes & Noble). … Read more