Barnes & Noble on Wednesday took the wraps off two new models of its Nook e-reader, an Android-based tablet designed to go head to head with Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD and other inexpensive e-readers and tablets. The Nook HD and HD+ cost $199 and $269 respectively.
The HD is a 7-inch tablet with a 1440 x 900 pixel display. The $199 model comes with 8GB of built-in storage; a 16GB version is available for $229. The HD+ is Barnes & Noble has a 9.5-inch display capable of showing 1920 x 1280 pixels.
The HD+ is the first Nook have similar dimensions to the iPad, though its resolution is lower (the iPad’s is 2048 x 1536). The HD+ comes in 16 and 32GB models for $269 and $299 respectively.
Both units can be expanded with more storage capacity using microSD cards, and have built in 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth. Both run Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich.”
If this is as much of an Android device as the newer Kindles are, I seriously hope it does very well for B&N.