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(Image source: Gizmodo)
BY EVAN THOMAS
ANCHOR JASMINE BAILEY
With time to spare in front of the holiday
season, Barnes & Noble has carved out a fresh nook in the tablet market.
All Things
D reports the bookseller debuted two new tablets Tuesday, a seven-inch Nook HD and a nine-inch
Nook HD+. They’re running a customized version of Android 4.0 and come in a variety of capacities.
The
HD will ship in 8GB and 16GB configurations, for $199 and $229, respectively; the HD+ will
fit 16GB and 32GB of storage for either $269 or $299.
The mid-range tablet marketplace
is an increasingly packed one, but Wired notes a somewhat unique feature that allows families
to create a series of user profiles for the same device, and set content restrictions
on web access, email and even certain books or videos.
The Verge likes it. It wasn’t
designed as an afterthought.
“It’s a pretty cool feature. We’ve seen something
like it on other tablets, but this is a very kind of complete, core feature in the Android
operating system here.”
Also new to the Nooks is a video service, so you can put
those high-def screens to use.
“The other big new feature here is Nook video.
It isn’t Vudu or something else like that. This is actually a Nook video store.”
And
that, says VentureBeat, is an important step forward for Barnes & Noble’s tablets.
“A dedicated, non-sideloaded video service was one of the most glaring omissions in Barnes
it.”
How the new Nooks will stack up to the competition this holiday season remains
to be seen. Preorders are open now, and the tablets will hit the market next month.