Nook Tablet Now Available for Pre-Order for $249 (Video)

Today Barnes and Noble pulled the veil off their latest gadget, the Nook Tablet, what is essentially an updated version of the Nook Color.

The Nook Tablet is up for pre-order right now from B&N.com for $249. It releases on November 18th.

For the most part, the leaked info about the Nook Tablet was correct. One pleasant exception is the battery life. B&N claims the Nook Tablet can get 9 hours of video playback and up to 11.5 hours of reading. Nice. They also claim the display has the lowest reflection and glare of any tablet.

B&N’s Nook Tablet Video Tour

Nook Tablet Specs and Features

• 7″ LG VividView IPS display
• 1024 x 600 pixel resolution (169 ppi)
• 16GB storage memory
• 1GB RAM
• MicroSD cards up to 32GB
• Dual-core processor 1 GHz OMAP4
• Music via Pandora, Rhapsody, MOG, and Grooveshark
• 1080p video support, movies and TV from Netflix and Hulu Plus
• 2.5 million ebooks from B&N, plus magazines, newspapers, kids books
• Adobe Flash support
• Comics via Marvel
• Families can Read and Record their own narrations to childrens’ books with a built-in microphone
• 8 text sizes, 6 font styles, change background colors, line and margin spacing
• Built-in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary
• Speaker, 3.5mm headphone jack.
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, free at B&N stores
• Battery: 9 hours of video playback, 11.5 reading
• Size: 8.1″ x 5″ x .48″
• Weight: 14.1 ounces (400 grams)
• Format support: Adobe DRM, EPUB, PDF, XLS, DOC, PPT, TXT, DOCM, XLSM, PPTM, PPSX, DOCX, XLX, PPTX, Adobe Flash, JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, MP3, MP4, and AAC
• Price: $249 at Barnes and Noble

Barnes and Noble repeatedly made claims that the Nook Tablet is better than the Kindle Fire at the press event. Personally, given all the preliminary details of both, I have to agree that the Nook Tablet is a better tablet than the Kindle Fire. On paper, that is. I’ll have to wait until I get them both in-hand to know for sure. Check back for the full reviews and comparisons in about two weeks.

Here’s more info from the press release:

NOOK Tablet: Built for Speed… and Beauty
NOOK Tablet was designed for customers who want to read and be entertained with a variety of apps and media. Barnes & Noble designed the device for power, speed and responsiveness using the latest and most advanced technology. With a highly tuned 1GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM, there’s plenty of memory to stream HD videos smoothly, browse the Web, and switch between books, magazines, videos and apps effortlessly. Barnes & Noble developed revolutionary battery life with NOOK Tablet, enabling 11.5 hours of reading time or nine hours of video viewing – the equivalent of five full-length movies. Everything looks stunning on NOOK Tablet, which features the world’s most advanced VividView™ display for viewing content, with 16 million colors and a resolution purity that’s simply gorgeous. Barnes & Noble invested in full IPS lamination to reduce reflection and glare and offer extra-wide viewing angles – perfect for sharing.

Best in Entertainment
NOOK Tablet gives customers the best names in entertainment so they can choose the TV shows and movies they love from leading services like Netflix and Hulu Plus, both pre-loaded on NOOK Tablet and offering free trials. Customers can instantly stream brilliant HD-quality videos. Also coming soon to NOOK Tablet: Flixster with UltraViolet™, for newly released movies and TV shows from Warner Bros. and other leading studios. NOOK Tablet owners can listen to millions of songs using the hottest music services, including Pandora, pre-loaded on NOOK Tablet, as well as Rhapsody®, Grooveshark and MOG, all available with a free 14-day trial. NOOK Tablet owners can also listen to their own songs wherever they go with the built-in music player.

Your Reading and Entertainment Content – Anywhere
A powerful HD entertainment machine designed for maximum portability, NOOK Tablet is well under a pound (14.1 oz.), making it one-third lighter than the leading tablet and 10 percent lighter than the award-winning NOOK Color. Sleek and thin with a soft touch back design, NOOK Tablet can be held comfortably for extended periods with just one hand and slips easily into a pocket or purse for reading and entertainment on-the-go. And with 16GB of storage – double the space of some other tablets – plus expandable memory, customers have ample space for their reading and entertainment content, regardless of Wi-Fi availability.

Customers can also access their personal NOOK Library™ through the free, stable and secure NOOK Cloud™ service, which also powers the seamless integration and synchronization between devices, as well as NOOK’s best-in-class shopping experience and social features.

Thousands of Must-Have Apps, Web & E-mail
Barnes & Noble offers NOOK Tablet customers a wide array of top-rated NOOK Apps™ to play, learn, organize and explore with must-haves like Angry Birds Rio and Seasons, SCRABBLE, Epicurious, My Cast Weather, Taptu, Style.com, Spanish for Dummies, Bejeweled® 2, Ms. Pac Man and more. There are hundreds of popular apps for kids, including Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat, Drawing Pad and Pop Up Peter Rabbit. All NOOK Apps are the best, highest-quality versions available, optimized for NOOK Tablet’s beautiful and ultra-responsive 7-inch color touchscreen. By the holidays, Barnes & Noble will offer thousands of high-quality NOOK Apps from leading third-party developers and content providers that can be enjoyed on NOOK Tablet, as well as NOOK Color.

NOOK Tablet also features lightning-fast Web browsing so customers can surf their favorite sites, from Facebook to YouTube, and stream brilliant HD videos. NOOK Tablet’s built-in e-mail also makes it easy to stay connected with friends and family.

Barnes & Noble’s Award-Winning Reading Experience
NOOK Tablet customers can shop the world’s largest bookstore, featuring more than 2.5 million books, enhanced books, interactive magazines, newspapers, comic books and children’s books. Content downloads lightning-fast, usually in less than 10 seconds over Wi-Fi.

• NOOK Newsstand™: Choose from more than 250 newspapers and full-color, interactive magazines, delivered like magic to NOOK Tablet’s Active Shelf on the Home screen as soon as they become available. Barnes & Noble offers the largest digital collection of top 100 magazines, including PEOPLE, Food Network Magazine, Us Weekly, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, TIME, National Geographic and many others. Colorful interactive magazines offer Barnes & Noble’s ArticleView™, new animated page turns and smooth pinch, zoom and panning. Many special edition NOOK Magazines™ feature videos, quizzes, image galleries and more.
• New NOOK Comics: Barnes & Noble is offering a vast new collection of full-color comics, graphic novels and kids’ comics in high resolution that virtually make the action jump off the page. NOOK Comics will feature the world’s greatest superheroes with the largest digital collection of Marvel’s graphic novels available through a third party, as well as titles from other leading publishers, including Archie, IDW and Dynamite.
• NOOK Kids™: This holiday’s largest collection of more than 1,000 interactive children’s picture books and more than 12,000 chapter books just got even better. Bestselling books feature animation and engaging activities. With the new Read and Record™ feature, parents and grandparents can use NOOK Tablet’s built-in microphone to record and save their reading of any NOOK Kids picture books so children can listen to their favorite storytellers anytime.
• More to read: Barnes & Noble continues to expand its NOOK Bookstore™ with the vast majority of books available for $9.99 or less. New PagePerfect™ NOOK Books™ feature cookbooks, craft and art books rendered with rich precision to retain all the beauty of their stunning print versions.
• Enhanced reading: Reading is even more dynamic with PDF thumbnail page views, and image pinch, zoom and pan in books and PDFs.
• Unparalleled recommendations: Learn what to read next from Barnes & Noble’s knowledgeable booksellers, from must-read new releases to up-and-coming authors. Barnes & Noble’s personalized recommendations are based on what customers already love. In any book a customer is reading, a simple tap on the new NOOK Discover™ icon offers instant recommendations.
• Get more social: NOOK Tablet now makes it easier than ever for customers to share their reading experience with friends. They can connect with Facebook friends and others through NOOK Friends™, and find out what they have to say about their books, magazines and newspapers. Customers can also share their thoughts about the books they’re reading via e-mail, Facebook and Twitter. Owners can share books, as well as browse and borrow books, from NOOK Friends using Barnes & Noble’s exclusive LendMe® technology.
• Continuous reading: Read what you love, anywhere you like™ on NOOK devices and with FREE NOOK Reading Apps. NOOK Cloud automatically syncs a customer’s library, last page read, bookmarks, notes, and highlights across all of their devices, so a customer can start a book on NOOK Tablet, and dive back in on their computer or smartphone.