Barnes & Noble's Nook Tablet
Though it officially goes on sale at the end of next week, you can preorder the Nook Tablet now, according to Barnes & Noble.
A Closer Look
The 7-inch Nook Tablet is the second generation of B&N's Nook Color platform, and with the adoption of the simple name “Nook Tablet,” the company acknowledges what we've all known for the past year: That this LCD-based platform is as much a tablet as an e-reader. The Nook Tablet will cost $50 more than Amazon's Kindle Fire, but for that, you get more than what Amazon offers. Or what any other tablet offers, for that matter.
That said, the Nook Tablet's interface looks nothing like that of the Android masses. The software is a wholly customized version of Android 2.3, with optimizations for accessing your reading material. Like the Nook Color before it, the Nook Tablet lacks access to Google services, including Android Market; to download apps, you'll have to go through B&N's own app store, which is growing daily.
