Kindle Fire vs Nook Tablet: specs by specs comparison

December 27, 2011 | Filed under: Business | Posted by:

By Rakesh Kumar (NVOnews.Com)

Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook tablets have reverberated the hotly contested tablet market in the last few weeks. Though there were several tablets coming to the market every now and then, but Kindle Fire was the one that changed the very landscape of the tablet’s turf war. The emphasis shifted from hotly contested 10 inch tablet to 7 inch tablet that was written off earlier.

A tablet in sub $200 price category, with loads of media and entertainment sources captured the imagination of the people who are fascinated with new concepts and new designs. The new Kindle Fire was followed by an equally great small 7 inch tablet by Barnes and Noble’s Nook tablet that though $50 costlier than the Kindle tablet, was still very cheap compared to iPad or Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Notwithstanding several complaints about the slow response in the Kindle and several other complaints, Fire is the best Kindle yet, no doubt about it. It’s amazing that it costs half of what the first Kindle cost, just four years ago, yet does so much more than display books. It’s more of an all-purpose tablet than an e-reader. It shows movies, TV shows and Web pages. It does email and lets you play games. You’ll be lucky to get any reading done, with so many other things to do.

Both the tablets come with very captivating and impressive display. Amazon’s Kindle Fire comes with a 7-inch IPS TFT active matrix display with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels at 169 ppi while Barnes and Noble’s Nook Tablet comes with 7-inch VividView color touchscreen with the same resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels and pixel density of 169. It is being said that Nook’s display is comparatively better than Kindle Fire.

Both the tablets come with nearly identical Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS. Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet have Gingerbread as the firmware. The tablets are preloaded with Android Market and many incredible apps for eReading and content streaming. Both Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet support on-demand video services like Netflix, Hulu and Pandora. Besides them, the devices are with lots of Google features and others.

Battery life is an important aspect of tablets. Many people dream that their tablets have the longest battery life so that they are able to use it outdoor without bothering to search for a power outlet. Amazon claims that its Kindle Fire has 7.5 hours of battery life for video playback. While Nook says that its tablet comes with 9 hours and 15 minutes battery life. The long batter lives of both the tablets are important attractions for the perspective buyers.

When it comes to internal storage, Kindle Fire comes with only 8 GB of internal storage. Usually more than 2 GB of the memory is eaten up by the tablet’s Operating System. So it is left with no more than 6 GB of space to store apps, music, movies and huge amount of other media. Nook tablet on the other hand comes up with 16 GB built in plus you can add up to 16 GB with an SD card.

Both tablets Kindle Fire and Nook are very fast and come with 1 GHz, dual-core processor. But when it comes to RAM, Nook comes with 1 GB of RAM. The 1 GB of RAM makes many things very easy for Nook users including multitasking, web browsing besides many other things.

Shortlink:

Posted by on December 27, 2011. Filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
  • Samuel Sze

    Regarding the nook’s SD slot, it can add an additional 32GB micro sd card, not 16… which puts storage including a microSD at 48 GB

  • gramma nozzi

    Prospective, not perspective. Etc… get an editor!

  • Aimee22

    Nice reading. personally I prefer the Kindle Fire.
    And guys might be interested in reading this “Kindle Fire VS Nook Tablet-Specs comparison” what listed as a chart in Aneesoft.

  • Guy from Ohio

    The Nook Tablet does have 16 GB total storage, with about 13 GB for use (after operating system, according to other reviews). However, of this 13 GB, all but 1 GB is restricted to content obtained from B&N. Buying an SD card will add probably $15 to $25 to total price of the Nook. B&N doesn’t have video content like Amazon has, so B&N probably isn’t as good if you want a lot of movies/TV shows.
    The Kindle Fire has about 6 GB available for use (after OS, according to other reviews). All of this is available for your content, whether downloaded from Amazon or not. Fire CANNOT be expanded with an SD card. But, Amazon also offers free 5 GB cloud storage (althogh this is accessible only when you’re in WiFi range).
    So … storage capacity may or may not be a big deciding factor. You’ll have to decide whether the total cost difference is worthwhile, depending upon how you will use the tablet.
    Both tablets are VERY nice. A number of reviewers note that Nook’s display is somewhat better — however, the Fire display is very good and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. I’ve never seen them side by side, so I have not perceived a difference.
    I have a Kindle Touch e-reader (my second Kindle) which I love, so I purchased a Kindle Fire for my wife — and she loves it.
    A friend has a Nook e-reader, and purchased a Nook Tablet — which she loves as well. If you have one type, all your books will be available simultaneously on the companion tablet.
    They are both very nice tablets, and very reasonable price points!!