Improved Nook seeks to fend off Kindle Fire

Amazon.com's Kindle Fire has drawn a lot of media and consumer attention as the latest, and perhaps the first legitimate, contender to the iPad. But Barnes & Noble Inc argues that Amazon is just following its lead. Nearly a year ago, the bookseller rolled out the Nook Color, a 7-inch device that it asserts is the second bestselling tablet behind Apple Inc's iPad. Now Barnes & Noble is trying to fend off Amazon with the $249 (Dh913.83) Nook Tablet, which looks the same as the $199 Nook Color but has a horsepower boost that makes it a more polished product worth considering for those who don't want to, or can't, spend $499 on an iPad. The Nook Tablet picks up where last year's Nook Color left off but adds improved hardware with a 1-gigahertz dual-core processor and 1 gigabyte of RAM and 16 gigabytes of storage. The Nook Color, selling at the same price as the Fire, features an 800-megahertz processor, 512 megabytes of RAM and 8 gigabytes of storage. The two Nook devices have the same display, which impressively renders web pages, movies and TV shows from Netflix and Hulu, as well as books, comics and magazines. Both also include a built-in email app. The Nook Tablet and Nook Color share the same body, though the two are painted in different shades of gray, and both are plenty comfortable to hold in the hand, with a mix of high-quality hard plastics and a softer rubberised back. Like the Fire, the Barnes & Noble tablets lack cameras, 3G/4G options, Bluetooth and other features found in higher-priced tablets. — Los Angeles Times