Kindle Fire vs. Nook Tablet
Review of the Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet
(and Nook Color) for the practical, everyday person
Scroll down to see a side-by-side review chart, or
click here.
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The tablet market is abuzz with the new
Amazon Kindle Fire and the
Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet. But how do they compare? Read on for a practical review of these bestselling tablets and, equally important, their content ecosystems, Amazon and Barnes & Noble. We'll also discuss the Nook Tablet's close cousin, the
Nook Color.
The Tablets Are Quite Similar
The Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet, and Nook Color are very similar tablets. You can surf the web, connect with friends via email/social media, play with apps/games, read ebooks, listen to music, and watch videos—all in a portable device that can fit in a coat pocket. The Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet and Nook Color all have 7" multi-touch screens, built-in email apps and web browsers, are WIFI-enabled, and can access their respective app stores online.
They're very similar in size and weight, with the Kindle Fire slightly smaller (by 0.6 inches) and the Nook Tablet slightly lighter (by 0.5 oz). But a difference of half an inch or half an ounce really aren't noticeable, especially if you use a cover or case.
Neither have a camera, GPS, Bluetooth, or 3G/4G cellular capabilities. But many people already have those on their smartphone or other mobile device, so those aren't dealbreakers for them.
Major Hardware Differences
Both the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet have a fast 1 GHz dual-core processor, while the slightly older Nook Color has a slower 800 MHz single-core processor (this might not make a noticeable difference in reading ebooks or listening to music, but for watching videos or running performance-intensive apps/games, it may be more obvious).
The Nook Tablet has 16 Gb of internal storage, while the Kindle Fire and Nook Color have 8 Gb. (Note that not all of the space is available to the user since the operating system software takes up space.)
The Nook Tablet also stands out with 1 Gb of RAM, while the Kindle Fire and Nook Color have 512 Mb of memory. How this all translates into actual performance on screen have yet to be seen, since a lot is determined by how efficient the software runs. (By comparison, the iPad 2 runs just fine with 512 Mb RAM.)
One big difference is that both the Nook Tablet and Nook Color have a micro SD card slot for expandable storage (cards up to 32 Gb and 16 Gb, respectively), whereas the Kindle Fire has no external card slot but instead focuses on free storage on the
Amazon Cloud servers. This might affect your decision based on your storage preferences.
Aside from the physical tablets themselves, let's look at how they differ in practical use.
Web Surfing
The Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet and Nook Color all run a customized version of the Android operating system. They each have a customized web browser supporting Flash content. Where the Kindle Fire differs is that it utilizes a special "split-browser" technology named
Amazon Silk that speeds up web page loading by preloading web files on their cloud servers based on your predicted browsing behavior. (Actually, this particular technology is already in use with the Opera web browser and many people can attest to its improved performance.) Critics of this technology cite privacy concerns, but Amazon doesn't save personally-identifiable information with the browsing data, so it's not a real issue in our opinion. Faster web surfing is definitely something anyone can appreciate.
Email/Social Media
To stay connected with friends and family, all three tablets also come with a built-in email app (where you can group different email accounts into one view). They also have social media apps connecting to Facebook and Twitter, although the Amazon app store has a greater selection of social media apps based on your preference of tools and social networks.
Apps & Games
The Amazon app store has a huge lead over the Barnes & Noble app store. The Amazon store currently has nearly 17,000 apps whereas the Barnes & Noble store only has about 1,000. The Amazon store has a better selection and pricing. For instance, on Amazon there are several different versions of Angry Birds ranging from free to $0.99, whereas the Barnes & Noble store has them for $2.99 each. Also, the Amazon store has a specially-offered free paid app a day. These are quality apps that normally cost money (one recent offering was the highly-rated Office Suite Pro 5, regularly priced at $15). Small savings here and there add up over time.
eBooks & Magazines
The ebook stores from both Amazon and Barnes & Noble are quite competitive. Both have a good selection (title availability is usually dependent on the publishers) and prices are generally comparable. Both systems count their books differently (don't forget that there are numerous free, public-domain books, and various versions of the same book, for that matter), so we don't pay too much attention to each store's purported book count of 1-2 million. What's important is that popular books that are of interest to you are represented. The same can also be said for magazine titles, more of which are being added regularly. The user experience for the online bookstores do differ, and we find the Kindle store easier to search and discover new books. It just comes down to personal preference.
The Amazon Kindle Fire (and family of e-readers) use AZW, a proprietary ebook format, whereas the Nook family of tablets and e-readers favor the more widely-used EPUB format. Both Amazon and Barnes & Noble have reading apps that sync your ebook, so you can read on your tablet in the morning, pick up where you left off on your smartphone during lunch, and continue reading on your computer at home in the evening. To the regular user, the format really doesn't matter. But do realize, however, that ebooks from the Kindle store will not open on the Nook tablets and vice versa.
For parents of young children, the Nook Tablet has a built-in microphone in which you can record yourself reading a book so that your child (or grandchild) can follow along to your voice. This is a nice touch that helps introduce kids to ebooks.
Owners of the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet and Nook Color can download ebooks from participating libraries via the Overdrive service. One notable difference is that with the Kindle Fire, you can wirelessly download the ebook to the device, whereas with either Nook tablet, you must download the ebook to your computer, open up a different program called Adobe Digital Editions (which is free to install and create an Adobe account), connect your Nook tablet via a USB cable and drag-and-drop the ebook file over. It's not a huge deal once you get used to it, but it's much more cumbersome.
The newly released
Kindle Owners' Lending Library service enables Amazon Prime Members to borrow one ebook a month, with no due date, from a selection of thousands of titles (100+ current/former New York Times Bestsellers). Some have likened it to a Netflix for books. Although this service alone may not be worth the Amazon Prime membership cost alone ($79/yr), it's definitely a nice perk in addition to the other benefits of Prime membership (free 2-day shipping, unlimited movie streaming). New Kindle Fire owners will get one free trial month of Amazon Prime membership. (Kindle Owners' Lending Library is not to be confused with the ebook lending feature available that allows you to lend an ebook you own to one other person for a 14-day period.)
Nook owners can benefit from the In Store feature that allows them to read any ebook for one hour in a Barnes & Noble store when their tablet connects to their WIFI.
Movies & Music
Amazon has a vast catalog of over 100,000 movies and TV shows available to stream or download, purchase or rent. Amazon Prime members can enjoy unlimited streaming of over 10,000 movies and TV shows. Also, the Kindle Fire comes preloaded with the Netflix and Hulu Plus apps.
The Nook Tablet also comes preloaded with the Netflix and Hulu Plus, although their own catalog of media offerings is yet to be seen. The Nook Color, with its reduced processing power, is less optimal for watching high-quality video.
Amazon boasts 17 million songs in the Amazon MP3 Store that can be purchased and streamed from a personalized music library on their cloud servers or downloaded to the Fire to listen offline. Also, the Kindle Fire has the Pandora and Rhapsody apps.
The Nook Tablet also has Pandora and Rhapsody, as well as a built-in music player to load your own music.
Conclusion
The Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet are very capable 7" tablets. Although the Nook Tablet has twice the memory, actual performance differences is yet to be seen. On the other hand, the Amazon Silk split-browser technology might provide a faster web experience, although that is yet to be seen as well.
To simplify, the major distinguishing factors really come down to:
- Ecosystem – Which ecosystem of products and services do you want to be locked into? Amazon has many more apps, games, books, magazines, movies and music offerings compared to the Barnes & Noble store. Also, Amazon Prime Members enjoy unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows and borrowing one free ebook a month.
- Storage – Do you need a lot of storage space on the device or are you content with unlimited cloud storage and getting much of your content via streaming? The Nook Tablet has more internal storage space (16 Gb vs. Kindle Fire's 8 Gb) as well as a slot for a removable microSD card (up to 32 Gb). The Nook Color has 8 Gb of storage space as well as a card slot (up to 16 Gb). The Kindle Fire has no card slot but it is also $50 less than the Nook Tablet.
- Media Consumption – Do you plan to consume a lot of media (movies, TV shows, music) or will you primarily read ebooks/magazines, surf the web, check email and play with an occasional app or game? If the latter, it may not be necessary to pay more for the higher memory/storage specs of the Nook Tablet.
The Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet and Nook Color are all impressive products. Below is a side-by-side comparison chart of specs and features.
| Web Surfing |
Amazon Silk "split-browser" technology enables faster web surfing (supports Flash) |
Customized Android browser (supports Flash) |
Customized Android browser (supports Flash) |
| Email |
built-in email app gets webmail (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.) into single inbox;
additional email apps available in Amazon Appstore |
built-in email app |
built-in email app |
| Social Media |
numerous social networking apps (Facebook, Twitter) |
2+ Facebook/Twitter apps;
NOOK Friends (beta) social network for readers |
2+ Facebook/Twitter apps;
NOOK Friends (beta) social network for readers |
| Apps/Games |
17,000+ apps in Amazon store;
free paid app a day |
1,000+ apps in B&N store ("thousands" to come) |
1,000+ apps in B&N store ("thousands" to come) |
| eBooks |
1+ million;
additional 2+ million public domain classics;
wirelessly download library e-books via Overdrive;
1,000+ children's illustrated books;
Amazon Library Lending - borrow 1 free e-book/month;
Comixology app for comic books |
2+ million;
download library e-books via Overdrive and transfer via Adobe Digital Editions software;
In Store feature allows 1 free hour of reading any book in B&N store |
2+ million;
download library e-books via Overdrive and transfer via Adobe Digital Editions software;
In Store feature allows 1 free hour of reading any book in B&N store |
| Magazines/Newspapers |
400+ |
200+ |
200+ |
| Movies/TV Shows |
NetFlix app pre-loaded
Hulu Plus app pre-loaded
100,000+ movies/shows avail. to purchase or rent from Amazon
(Amazon Prime Members: unlimited streaming of 10,000+ TV shows/movies) |
NetFlix app pre-loaded
Hulu Plus app pre-loaded |
|
| Music |
17,000,000 songs in Amazon MP3 Store (stream from cloud or download)
Pandora app pre-loaded
Rhapsody app |
Pandora app pre-loaded
Rhapsody app |
Pandora app pre-loaded
Rhapsody app |
| Screen |
7" (Gorilla Glass)
1024 x 600 resolution (169 ppi)
16 million colors, IPS display |
7"
1024 x 600 resolution (169 ppi)
16 million colors, IPS display |
7"
1024 x 600 resolution (169 ppi)
16 million colors, IPS display |
| Size |
7.5 x 4.7 x 0.45 inches |
8.1 x 5.0 x 0.48 inches |
8.1 x 5.0 x 0.5 inches |
| Weight |
14.6 oz |
14.1 oz |
15.8 oz |
| Processor |
1 GHz TI OMAP 4 (Dual-Core) |
1 GHz TI OMAP 4 (Dual-Core) |
800 MHz Cortex-A8 (Single-Core) |
| Memory |
512 Mb RAM |
1 Gb RAM |
512 Mb RAM |
| Storage |
8 GB internal;
free storage on Amazon cloud servers; no card slot |
16 GB internal;
micro SD card slot |
8 GB internal;
micro SD card slot |
| WIFI |
802.11 b/g/n/x |
802.11 b/g/n |
802.11 b/g/n |
Supported
File Types |
AZW, TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively, Audible (Audible Enhanced (AA, AAX)), DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP,
non-DRM AAC, MP3, MIDI, OGG, WAV, MP4, VP8 |
EPUB, PDF, XLS, DOC, PPT, TXT, DOCM, XLSM, PPTM, PPSX, PPSM, DOCX, XLX, PPTX, MP4, or Adobe Flash Player format,
JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, MP3, MP4, AAC |
EPUB, PDF, XLS, DOC, PPT, TXT, DOCM, XLSM, PPTM, PPSX, PPSM, DOCX, XLX, PPTX, MP4, or Adobe Flash Player format,
JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, MP3, MP4, AAC |
| Camera |
No |
No |
No |
| GPS |
No |
No |
No |
| Cellular |
No |
No |
No |
| Bluetooth |
No |
No |
No |
| Battery Life |
8.0 hrs (mfr. estimate) |
11.0 hrs (mfr. estimate) |
8.0 hrs (mfr. estimate) |
| Price |
$199
includes 1 month free Amazon Prime Membership ($79/yr) |
$249 |
$199 |
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