There seems little doubt that the Kindle Fire will prove one of the holiday season's biggest hits. At $200, the budget tablet will no doubt prove too good a deal to pass up for many consumers not ready to make the price commitment to the industry-leading iPad or a top-tier Android tablet like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. Of course, the Fire wasn't the only budget Android tablet to launch this week -- heck, it wasn't even the only budget Android tablet launched by an e-reader producer. Barnes & Noble's Nook Tablet also, conveniently, hit stores earlier this week. The company took what it got right with the Nook Color, souped it up a bit internally and wound up with a solid competitor to the Fire.
Barnes & Noble certainly didn't go out of its way to distinguish the Nook Tablet from its predecessor, the Nook Color. The company really took an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach to industrial design -- after all, the Color was a good seller, so why reinvent the wheel here? And, for better or worse, the Nook is certainly one of the most distinctive designs in a world of iPad lookalikes, with its long body, hard plastic casing and the loop jutting out from the bottom left-hand corner. Standing out from the pack was clearly not a concern for Amazon, on the other hand. The little rectangular tablet looks a lot like the BlackBerry PlayBook.
Both tablets are a good size for one-handed reading, though the Nook edges out the Kindle here a bit, with its slightly lighter weight (14.1 ounces to the Fire's 14.6). The Nook's subtly convex back and plastic bezel make a bit easier to hold. Ultimately, however, this round comes down to aesthetic preference, and the Nook is certainly sure to be the more polarizing of the two options.
The whole physical button versus touch conversation also comes down to a matter of person preference, of course. In that department, the Nook has more to offer -- volume buttons, power, and the lowercase "n" home button, to the Kindle's single power button.
Both devices rock 1GHz dual-core processors, but the Nook has an edge here, with its 1GB of RAM to the Fire's 512MB -- and certainly the difference is noticeable, even when booting up something as simple as a game like Angry Birds. Things are even more pronounced during video playback. We took Shutter Island for a spin via Netflix streaming on both devices, and it was really like night and day. Motion is far less choppy on the Barnes & Noble device. The HD playback on the Nook also picked up subtle imagery like patterns on ties, which were largely lost on the Fire.
Browser performance is pretty much a toss up. The Kindle tended to load text more quickly, but the Nook had a better time with images. Scrolling and pinch-to-zoom is fairly comparable in the browsers, as well. Interestingly, Nook scored a low 4,135 on SunSpider 9.1, vs. the Fire's more impressive 2,440, a fact that might owe something to the Silk browser that Amazon's been talking up, which does the heavily lifting on the company's own servers.
When it comes to storage, the Nook's got the Fire beat at 16GB to 8GB. Things are a little tricky here as well, however, since the Nook is currently only offering up 1GB of its built-in storage to non-B&N-purchased content. That said, the Nook has a microSD slot, so there's plenty more where that came from. Also, the company promised that it is working on content deals with third parties that will utilize the 12GB devoted to B&N content on the reader.
Price, of course, is a biggie -- the Kindle is $50 cheaper than the Nook. That number makes a significant difference when the base price of the Fire is just $199. Of course, those who want to lop $50 from the Nook Tablet's $249 price can still pick up last year's Nook Color.
Ultimately, this is a pretty tight race between the two devices. Spec-wise, the Nook Tablet has the Kindle Fire beat, but between Amazon's pricing and suite of service, the Kindle comes out ahead on this one, if only just barely.
Source : Engadget
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5 Reasons Why I'm Selling My Kindle Fireby thecreativeone40,690 views
I rooted my nook tablet and turned it into a full android tablet its really cool
iphonehackeranddevol 1 month ago
um well you are a terrible reviewer kindle is the best and it sounds like you dont know what you are talking about
itsmepoppy1 1 month ago
@knightinmiami I know the kindle fire does not, I am not sure about the nook
brent4218 1 month ago
Am I the only one who thinks he sounds a bit like freddie roach at times? Anyways, one question: Do these devices have access to the regular android market (like the cell phones)? Would I be able to install any app (or game etc) that I wish to like I do on my android phone?
knightinmiami 1 month ago
@hockeyplayingkid they run android 2.3 so they would run flash
masterdeidara1 2 months ago
Seen both in real life and the Nook Tablet isn't a bad device but I would prefer a Kindle Fire
fredjj1 2 months ago
Almost every other reviews for the Fire I've watched (at least 15 of them) say that the video playback on both Amazon videos and Netflix is outstanding. You're the only person who seems to think the video is choppy...as far as I know. Even reviews saying the thing wasn't very good, said the video playing is one place where it shines. In your side by side comparison there weren't any discernible differences between the video playing for each of them.
antgoalie135 2 months ago
No internet testing??
spicedclay 2 months ago
does this have flash player??
hockeyplayingkid 2 months ago
can you have marvel comicsbooks on the kindle fire aswell..or only dc ??
dannox2 3 months ago