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[amrihua]

I like where the market is heading. The high-end Android tablet makers will have a tough time against Amazon and B&N. Of the two, hardware aside, Amazon will come on top because they've got the content and services. In fact, the content and services Amazon provides puts it ahead of Samsung, Motorola and HTC among others. For anyone going the Android route, Amazon makes the most sense. Sony might be the only hardware vendor that might have the services to compete with Amazon but we know Sony will find a way to mess up. The only thing Sony has could be PSSuite and they are already licensing that to everyone.

 

[longdi]

nook tab is better for a full android hack because of the specs and the kobo vox got very bad reviews, just a quick rebranding from a cheap china odm imo.

 

[Raistlin]

I like where the market is heading. The high-end Android tablet makers will have a tough time against Amazon and B&N. Of the two, hardware aside, Amazon will come on top because they've got the content and services. In fact, the content and services Amazon provides puts it ahead of Samsung, Motorola and HTC among others. For anyone going the Android route, Amazon makes the most sense. Sony might be the only hardware vendor that might have the services to compete with Amazon but we know Sony will find a way to mess up. The only thing Sony has could be PSSuite and they are already licensing that to everyone.

I'm just not seeing how Amazon is so far ahead when you can use Cloud Music on other tablets, and there are a ton of services like Netflix and Hulu available.

 

[btrboyev]

I'm just not seeing how Amazon is so far ahead when you can use Cloud Music on other tablets, and there are a ton of services like Netflix and Hulu available.

amazon has it's own app store. And they are really pushing their cloud based services...plus let's be honest..Amazon has the muscle to pull it off.

 

[Raistlin]

amazon has it's own app store. And they are really pushing their cloud based services...plus let's be honest..Amazon has the muscle to pull it off.

While the app store can be a benefit*, my point is their cloud based services don't magically move ahead of the alternatives.

Sure they have plenty of muscle, but they're going to need to add more services and improve their current ones if they want to argue they have decisively better services.

As it stands now, Nook has the better media consumption services available.





* B&N has their own as well - and it's specific to the Nook ... something I'm hoping Amazon does. If you have full access to the Amazon Android market, that's not always going to be a plus for traditional users. They won't be happy seeing half of the apps crash and burn when trying to run them.

Full access is good for power users though ... but then again, power users can access the full Google Android market on Nook.

 

[Krauser Kat]

is everyone really thinking we wont find a way to put cyanogen on the fire?

 

[Raistlin]

is everyone really thinking we wont find a way to put cyanogen on the fire?

Oh I'm sure we will.


Hell, I'm hoping we'll see triple boots that run Fire, Nook, and Cyanogen

 

[PhoncipleBone]

The biggest thing Amazon has screwed up in this is the lack of expandable memory, or lack of a larger capacity model. Having ONLY 8GB models available is just silly when you want to put music and video on it without having to stream it. Apple gets a lot of shit for not having expandable memory, but at least they sell (and charge a ton) for more storage space.

The Nook Tablet comes with more memory, and is expandable. I am honestly shocked that BN put so much memory in the thing.

 

[TouchMyBox]

Does anybody here have much experience playing high profile h.264 video on the OMAP4? What are your experiences with it?

That's the main reason why I returned my asus transformer since tegra 2 was abysmal at handling high profile video.

 

[RevDM]

The biggest thing Amazon has screwed up in this is the lack of expandable memory, or lack of a larger capacity model. Having ONLY 8GB models available is just silly when you want to put music and video on it without having to stream it. Apple gets a lot of shit for not having expandable memory, but at least they sell (and charge a ton) for more storage space.

The Nook Tablet comes with more memory, and is expandable. I am honestly shocked that BN put so much memory in the thing.

Depends on how you look at it. You get 5GB of cloud storage free for personal use for having an Amazon account, that you can upgrade to whatever you want. Also, you can get extra storage for $1/GB/Year. You also have unlimited cloud storage for all Amazon purchases for free.

 

[Marty Chinn]

Depends on how you look at it. You get 5GB of cloud storage free for personal use for having an Amazon account, that you can upgrade to whatever you want. Also, you can get extra storage for $1/GB/Year. You also have unlimited cloud storage for all Amazon purchases for free.

Does you no good aboard an airplane.

 

[RevDM]

Does you no good aboard an airplane.

True, except many airlines offer in flight wifi. Also transcontinental flights are only 6 or so hours. You shouldn't have a problem fitting 3 two-hour movies.

 

[Marty Chinn]

True, except many airlines offer in flight wifi. Also transcontinental flights are only 6 or so hours. You shouldn't have a problem fitting 3 two-hour movies.

In flight Wi-Fi is pretty expensive and silly for you have to pay because your tablet doesn't have storage space. Not to mention it's slow and unreliable so you might not be able to stream your content or download it reasonably anyway. 6GB of storage is going to fill up fast if you just put a few movies on it which means you can't hold anything else.

 

[Snaku]

6GB of storage is going to fill up fast if you just put a few movies on it which means you can't hold anything else.

Agreed, but Amazon claims you can store up to 10 movies on it at a time. I'm betting the movies you purchase through Amazon Instant Video are encoded specifically with the Kindle Fire in mind, and have a more reasonable file size than what iTunes delivers.

 

[WowBaby]

Amazon may have only 6 GB of on board storage but this is what the Nook Tablet page says about their on board storage:

1GB = 1 billion bytes. Actual formatted capacity may be less. Approximately 13GB available to store content, of which up to 12GB may be reserved for content purchased from the Barnes & Noble NOOK Store.

That leaves you with 1GB of storage for anything not bought from BN, and means that you HAVE to buy an SD card to have more storage.

 

[dr3upmushroom]

In flight Wi-Fi is pretty expensive and silly for you have to pay because your tablet doesn't have storage space. Not to mention it's slow and unreliable so you might not be able to stream your content or download it reasonably anyway. 6GB of storage is going to fill up fast if you just put a few movies on it which means you can't hold anything else.

This is a pretty big weak point of the Fire, and I guess international business people would prefer the Nook if they were forced to get it or the Fire, but I have trouble believing that people who travel by plane enough to care whether their tablet is suited for air travel can't afford an iPad/ Transformer/ Galaxy. The better specs of the Nook look nice, but personally the one or two flights I make biannually aren't going to have much bearing whether I need a tablet with a ton of onboard storage.

As it stands now, Nook has the better media consumption services available.

How so? They both have Netflix, both have Hulu, both can play ripped video, both play mp3s (I don't think B&N has an mp3 store though), both have pretty similar book stores. What exactly can the Nook do that puts it ahead of Fire for media consumption? I'm not saying the Fire is better, but to me they seem more or less equal in that regard.

 

[Marty Chinn]

Amazon may have only 6 GB of on board storage but this is what the Nook Tablet page says about their on board storage:

That leaves you with 1GB of storage for anything not bought from BN, and means that you HAVE to buy an SD card to have more storage.

Ugh, ya, I forgot about B&N now doing partitioning for their data storage rather than it being universal like on the original Nook. Thankfully MicroSD cards are cheap though. Certainly less than paying for WiFi onboard an airplane for one flight.

This is a pretty big weak point of the Fire, and I guess international business people would prefer the Nook if they were forced to get it or the Fire, but I have trouble believing that people who travel by plane enough to care whether their tablet is suited for air travel can't afford an iPad/ Transformer/ Galaxy. The better specs of the Nook look nice, but personally the one or two flights I make biannually aren't going to have much bearing whether I need a tablet with a ton of onboard storage.

Well one reason I'd consider one of these is a portable video player for kids. Say in the car or somewhere that doesn't have Internet access. No reason to spend $500 on a more expensive tablet when something like one of these will be good enough.

 

[dr3upmushroom]

Well one reason I'd consider one of these is a portable video player for kids. Say in the car or somewhere that doesn't have Internet access. No reason to spend $500 on a more expensive tablet when something like one of these will be good enough.

Yeah, I guess. Personally I think my kids could live with a few GB of storage during max half hour car rides, but I guess some people's kids need their entire music catalog and a few movies.

Obviously it depends on how you're using this stuff but for me the cloud is just unbelievably convenient, buy something in one spot and you have access to it on any computer with internet access, your phone, your tablet, your iPod. Giving that up just so your kids can have access to every iteration of Angry Birds and the entire greatest hits of Spongebob just seems ridiculous to me.

Plus the only way that works as a knock against the Fire is if you've decided that your kids are going to be Fire kids, and that's all they're ever going to do in the car ever. Most kids I know have an mp3 player, a DS or PSP or whatever, if they have good parents like to read, etc. If for some reason they're only allowed to play with a Fire or Nook then yeah, I guess it would be nice for them to have access to more content than the Fire allows, but it seems like a bizarrely specific situation to me.

 

[Marty Chinn]

Yeah, I guess. Personally I think my kids could live with a few GB of storage during max half hour car rides, but I guess some people's kids need their entire music catalog and a few movies.

Obviously it depends on how you're using this stuff but for me the cloud is just unbelievably convenient, buy something in one spot and you have access to it on any computer with internet access, your phone, your tablet, your iPod. Giving that up just so your kids can have access to every iteration of Angry Birds and the entire greatest hits of Spongebob just seems ridiculous to me.

Plus the only way that works as a knock against the Fire is if you've decided that your kids are going to be Fire kids, and that's all they're ever going to do in the car ever. Most kids I know have an mp3 player, a DS or PSP or whatever, if they have good parents like to read, etc. If for some reason they're only allowed to play with a Fire or Nook then yeah, I guess it would be nice for them to have access to more content than the Fire allows, but it seems like a bizarrely specific situation to me.

Definitely depends on your usage, but in general I have to say that a portable device that is dependent on the Internet and only has WiFi connectivity is pretty restrictive on where you can use it. Extra storage space alleviates that dependency on some sort of WiFi access point. If you use it only around your house, then no problem, but if you start taking it outside of the house, then it becomes a problem.

 

[jonnybryce]

It's weird. On paper, Nook Tablet is just better. I don't care though. I'd want a Fire over it.

I guess it comes down to ecosystem - Amazon does cooler stuff than Barnes and Noble. The Nook looks like an ugly keychain toy while the Fire is sleek. The Nook runs that hideous UI, while the Fire has a sexy ui.

Fire fire fire.

 

[ChanHuk]

If you're going to put CM7, Nook is the way to go, stock your best bet is the Fire.

 

[Snaku]

Amazon may have only 6 GB of on board storage but this is what the Nook Tablet page says about their on board storage:



That leaves you with 1GB of storage for anything not bought from BN, and means that you HAVE to buy an SD card to have more storage.

Jesus Christ, what could you possibly buy from B&N's store to fill up 13GB of space? They don't even have a video store. I was behind the NT because of the superior storage, but that absurd partitioning really soured my enthusiasm.

 

[WowBaby]

Jesus Christ, what could you possibly buy from B&N's store to fill up 13GB of space? They don't even have a video store. I was behind the NT because of the superior storage, but that absurd partitioning really soured my enthusiasm.

You would need to buy every single ebook and then some audiobooks to be able to use all that storage space. They don't have much else.

 

[Snaku]

Yeah, re-preordered the Fire. =/

 

[ChanHuk]

Jesus Christ, what could you possibly buy from B&N's store to fill up 13GB of space? They don't even have a video store. I was behind the NT because of the superior storage, but that absurd partitioning really soured my enthusiasm.

They've been doing it to prevent people putting stock android on the Nook Color. The XDA guys mended it within a week.

 

[MC RaZaR]

I was hoping this would be E-Ink. I mainly want a reader with good PDF support. I'll wait until more information is out for Fire I suppose.

 

[Talon]

Amazon's content offerings is the bigger deal here.

Specs are for the birds.

 

[amrihua]

Depends on how you look at it. You get 5GB of cloud storage free for personal use for having an Amazon account, that you can upgrade to whatever you want. Also, you can get extra storage for $1/GB/Year. You also have unlimited cloud storage for all Amazon purchases for free.

This. On board storage with content streaming and online storage and backup becomes moot. Still 8GB is on the low-end. 16GB is the sweet spot.

 

[PhoncipleBone]

I was hoping this would be E-Ink. I mainly want a reader with good PDF support. I'll wait until more information is out for Fire I suppose.

Kobo Touch and Nook Simple Touch are for you then. Kobo has the better PDF support though.

 

[tino]

I am not getting either due to the screen resolution.

But if its my money I would pick Nook Tablet for SD slot and higher memory capacity.

Remember, Huawei MediaPad > *

 

[Stinkles]

In flight Wi-Fi is pretty expensive and silly for you have to pay because your tablet doesn't have storage space. Not to mention it's slow and unreliable so you might not be able to stream your content or download it reasonably anyway. 6GB of storage is going to fill up fast if you just put a few movies on it which means you can't hold anything else.

In flight wifi, Gogo at least, is 9.95 per flight, which is incredibly reasonable IMO. And it works great, I can stream Netflix on it. Since I travel a lot for business, I put it on expenses, which is legitimate and Gogo has monthly passes for 35 bucks. And if you fly enough, that can be like a couple of bucks per flight.

The previous rant is really about how awesome Gogo is. One of the few truly pleasant and functional aspects of modern flight.

 

[dr3upmushroom]

Definitely depends on your usage, but in general I have to say that a portable device that is dependent on the Internet and only has WiFi connectivity is pretty restrictive on where you can use it. Extra storage space alleviates that dependency on some sort of WiFi access point. If you use it only around your house, then no problem, but if you start taking it outside of the house, then it becomes a problem.

Depends where you live. I don't even live in a very big city and there's free WiFi nearly everywhere, most importantly at my college campus. If you live in a more rural setting though then yeah, I guess the Fire would be a lot more limited. Glad I don't have to worry about it!

 

[popeutlal]

Was going to buy the Fire, then found out there its no memory expansion. Then was going to buy the Nook, then found out it only has 1gb of personal usable storage.

 

[br0ken_shad0w]

If you're an android enthusiast, I'd wait like a week or so for people look under the hood and see what they come up with. Amazon said they won't stop hacking, but that doesn't mean we won't get locked down systems.

 

[The Faceless Master]

i don't get why anyone would get a Nook Tablet.

i can see why people would spend $199 on a Kindle Fire, but if you're going to spend $250, why not spend $270 on an Archos 80 G9?

 

[TheChewyWaffles]

As others have said, see the current shellacking that the iPad is putting on Android-based tablets for proof that specs mean dick. The content and services are what's king. 8GB sucks, yes, but that just means Kindle 2 will come out next year and address these problems. For my dollar, I'll invest in Amazon's ecosystem over B&N's.

 

[outunderthestars]

As others have said, see the current shellacking that the iPad is putting on Android-based tablets for proof that specs mean dick. The content and services are what's king. 8GB sucks, yes, but that just means Kindle 2 will come out next year and address these problems. For my dollar, I'll invest in Amazon's ecosystem over B&N's.

I am in the same boat as you.

 

[Stinkles]

i don't get why anyone would get a Nook Tablet.

i can see why people would spend $199 on a Kindle Fire, but if you're going to spend $250, why not spend $270 on an Archos 80 G9?

Well, the real answer for most people is like the answer for me: Never heard of it.

* Closely followed by Amazon service and infrasturcture. The travel looks like this:

Long biz trip - Laptop and Kindle Fire
Medium biz trip - iPad with Keyboard dock and Kindle Fire
Short trip - Kindle Fire
Family trip - iPad and Kindle Fire.

 

[GodfatherX]

i would be all over the Kindle fire if it let you add your own epub and cbz files, at $200 it's a lot nicer then a lot of the other non apple tablets ive been looking at. I primarily need a color e-reader that can do cbz or the ability to download a program that can

 

[Eric C]

i would be all over the Kindle fire if it let you add your own epub and cbz files, at $200 it's a lot nicer then a lot of the other non apple tablets ive been looking at. I primarily need a color e-reader that can do cbz or the ability to download a program that can

Amazon does have some epub and comic readers in the "amazon appstore for android".

I'm not sure what on the amazon appstore is or isn't compatible with the Fire though.

 

[Raistlin]

How so? They both have Netflix, both have Hulu, both can play ripped video, both play mp3s (I don't think B&N has an mp3 store though), both have pretty similar book stores. What exactly can the Nook do that puts it ahead of Fire for media consumption? I'm not saying the Fire is better, but to me they seem more or less equal in that regard.

At the time I posted that, Fire had neither Netflix nor Hulu. The poster I was responding to claimed Amazon had the better services, which at the time was obviously bordering on silly.

Given the current support I'm of the same position you are. They are pretty similar in this regard.

 

[tino]

i don't get why anyone would get a Nook Tablet.

i can see why people would spend $199 on a Kindle Fire, but if you're going to spend $250, why not spend $270 on an Archos 80 G9?

Nook likely will have much better cyanogenmod suppert.

That French tablet is basically a Chinese bootleg tablet as far as I concern.

 

[br0ken_shad0w]

I'd buy the Kindle Fire with the expectation of what it is: a cheap, yet decent tablet. Because the power user in me would be disappointed in only 8gb, no SD expansion, no volume button (wtf?), 512mb RAM, and only amazon market.

If you want a CM/ICS tablet, might as well spend up to a hundred more to not get something so gimped.

 

[Carlisle]

Nook Tab for sure. If you're even remotely interested in rooting the device for use as a full android tablet, Nook destroys Fire. Really disappointed Amazon didn't do more with their device, hardware wise. A year late to the party and it's still not even as capable as last year's Nook.

All of Fire's advantages are on the software front, and they are impressive to be sure. But with BN starting their own cloud service, building a borrowing feature, and expanding their app and software library, the software differences are starting to blur. And like I said, if you're expecting to root whatever you buy, the software argument is moot and the most important thing is storage capacity.

However I do think it's an interesting tactic how strongly Amazon is pushing cloud. By limiting the Fire's storage so much, cloud is necessary and gets more people to adopt it. It reminds me of the way Apple ignored flash, making the HTML5 market explode. Increased portability and connectivity seems to be the wave of the future, and cloud services are the heart of that idea. But I still don't like the idea of paying a monthly/yearly fee for hard drive space. I've got enough bills.

 

[Loki]

Nook Tab for sure. If you're even remotely interested in rooting the device for use as a full android tablet, Nook destroys Fire. Really disappointed Amazon didn't do more with their device, hardware wise. A year late to the party and it's still not even as capable as last year's Nook.

I wouldn't go that far (I think the Fire edges out the original Nook Color spec-wise, though I haven't really investigated it), but given that it's coming to market a year later, the difference should have been WAY more substantial than it is. The Nook Tab's video playback, navigation, and web browsing performance look significantly better than the Fire's from the hands-on video's I've seen. It's also likely to be the more open platform, both without and especially with rooting. Tech-wise, the Nook Tab is definitely the superior value - no question of that imo.

All of Fire's advantages are on the software front, and they are impressive to be sure. But with BN starting their own cloud service, building a borrowing feature, and expanding their app and software library, the software differences are starting to blur. And like I said, if you're expecting to root whatever you buy, the software argument is moot and the most important thing is storage capacity.

Yeah, a rooted Nook Tablet would be ridiculous for the price point. B&N's tech and content offering have generally been more robust and ahead-of-the-curve than Amazon's have been (first to offer 3G, first to allow book lending between devices, first to incorporate touch functionality etc.; on a side note, I wish both manufacturers would introduce 3G capable versions for a slightly higher price. Also, here's to hoping that B&N finds a way to port the Nook Study application to the Nook Tablet - it's an absolutely fantastic piece of software for students).

PS - where have you heard about a B&N cloud service?

 

[GodfatherX]

alright, checking back in

a rooted Nook color is the way i'm leaning, seems to be the most capable for the price

 

[RevDM]

Lol at BN website comparing Nook vs Fire. They make the Fire seem so dull

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/compare-nook-tablet-vs-kindle-fire/379003173/

 

[Loki]

alright, checking back in

a rooted Nook color is the way i'm leaning, seems to be the most capable for the price

Nook Color or Nook Tablet? The Nook Color is over a year old now, and the Tablet is only $50 more and far better spec and content-wise, and you'll probably be able to root that as well (waiting on confirmation of this).

 

[dream]

Lol at BN website comparing Nook vs Fire. They make the Fire seem so dull

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/compare-nook-tablet-vs-kindle-fire/379003173/

Huh, I didn't know the Nook screen was bonded to the glass. That's actually a pretty big deal if you've ever used an iPhone 4.

 

[popeutlal]

Some good impressions of the Nook Tablet http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1395