Amazon watch out, Barnes & Noble to launch cheaper 8GB Nook Tablet in two days
Posted on 20. Feb, 2012 by Albert Madison in Tablets
The Amazon Kindle Fire tablet is hot right now and the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet is, well, not as hot. The two tablets both come with 7-inch touchscreens and dual-core processors, but the 16GB Nook Tablet is $50 more expensive than the 8GB Kindle Fire tablet. Barnes & Noble’s tablet could be failing to top the Kindle Fire in sales due to that $50 price difference, but the company could be readying a new 8GB Nook Tablet that matches the Kindle Fire’s $199 price tag.
Late in 2011 the Nook Tablet launched and comparing it’s hardware specifications to those of the Kindle Fire showed that Barnes & Noble had the better tablet. However as the holiday shopping season went into full swing the Kindle Fire stole all the headlines and became Amazon’s best-selling product on it’s very popular Amazon.com online store. In comparison Barnes & Noble reported that the Nook Tablet was the fastest selling Nook ever, and they’ve sold more than a million Nook Tablet’s.
Is a $199 Nook Tablet that good of an idea right now?
Right now many people online think that the new 8GB Nook Tablet that’s supposed to launch on February 22, 2012 will be $199 to match the Kindle Fire. That’s something that is highly likely, but I’m not sure how well that price will work for B&N’s bottom line.
Leaked document exposing the 8GB Nook Tablet's release plans. Image: The Verge
It’s well-known that Amazon takes a loss on each Kindle Fire sold in hopes that they make up the difference and a nice profit on content sales through their Amazon App Store, Book store, MP3 store, Movie store and cloud storage. Barnes & Noble doesn’t have the plethora of digital offerings for Nook Tablet buyers that Amazon has for their Kindle Fire customers, but that’s not so say they aren’t working to get more content ready for the future.
However I’m sure that the executives at B&N have discussed the financials for offering a $199 tablet in full already, if that’s the route the company is really about to take.
What about the Nook Color?
When the Nook Tablet was launched last year the folks at B&N decided to keep the 7-inch Nook Color around, but drop it’s price down to $199. For all intensive purposes the Nook Color e-Reader/Android tablet was the interim direct competitor for the Kindle Fire. If B&N does launch an 8GB Nook Tablet I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Nook Color leave the market for good.
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Barnes & Noble does the inevitable, launches $199 Nook Tablet and drops the Nook Color’s price | Tablets Planet
21. Feb, 2012
[...] on 21. Feb, 2012 by TabletMan in TabletsToday, Barnes & Noble launched a tablet that everyone saw coming. The $199 8GB Nook Tablet was made available for purchase today for the first time on the Barnes [...]