B&N Releases Nook Tablet To Rival Amazon Fire 183
jfruhlinger writes "It looks like there's competition in the low-cost media tablet space — and that Barnes & Noble is determined not to go the way of Borders. Barnes & Noble today announced the Nook Tablet, an Android-based tablet with better specs than the Kindle Fire (though it's also $50 pricier). The Nook Tablet will allow Hulu and Netflix streaming and sideloading of content, but won't have access to the general-purpose Android App Store."
So worse than the current nook? (Score:2, Informative)
I have a nook color, with CM7. I have the google market, amazon market, both nook and kindle app and netflix. I am sure if I cared I could have hulu premium as well.
And in other -- er, actually, the same -- news... (Score:5, Informative)
... the already-exisitng, easily-hackable previous Nook Color is now $50 less--just US$199. [barnesandnoble.com] Nice! Very tempted...
Re:And in other -- er, actually, the same -- news. (Score:4, Informative)
And unlike the Kindle Fire, the Nook Color has an SD card slot.
Re:Just One Question: (Score:4, Informative)
I chatted with the Barnes and Nobles sales guy via their website and asked that same question. They said it will be rootable. (Gave me the warning about voiding warranty). So, I'm guessing that it is, although the sales guy is likely ignorant and just repeating what he has heard.
Re:Color e-ink display? (Score:4, Informative)
What?
You can add a near-instant capacitive touch interface to a color (only 30FPS/30Hz, but that still seems ok) E-Ink display just fine, though it darkens the screen a bit.
A darn shame the tech hasn't been mass-produced though. No demand for it despite the clear battery life improvement.
Re:I don't see the advantage. (Score:4, Informative)
Clock the old nook up to 1.2Ghz and flash is fine.
Re:And in other -- er, actually, the same -- news. (Score:5, Informative)
Any word on if the new Nook Tablet has the same feature?
Re:Incidentally (Score:4, Informative)
Really. [eweekeurope.co.uk] 44.8% Android to 27.4% iPhone is already dwindled, but when the huge hype of the iPhone 4S release produces only a 0.1% increase in market share, the months after initial release will doubtless show further dwindle.
The much smaller market segment that is tablets also shrank [gmanews.tv], from 75% to 67% iPad, while Android's share grew to 27%. The iPad lead is dwindling, and by the time tablets are as substantial a market segment as are smartphones, the iPad share's further shrinkage in the minority will contribute to the overall dwindling of Apple's share.
Apple is a great innovator, and a terrific survivor. But the company has never been much of a sustainer of market share. The diversity of large markets works against the total platform control that Apple always builds its products on, even as it helps Apple's kind of mass market but quality innovations and its tenacious survival. The middle phase is where most of the money is, and Microsoft and now Google (and its partners, the further development of the Microsoft corollary) come to dominate most of the time by owning it through relative openness.