Barnes and Noble is once again cutting the price of its flagship Nook HD+ and Nook HD tablets which are reduced by up to 30 percent in the US as part of a Mothers Day offer.
The short-term deal — which covers Nook.com and physical retail outlets — sees the cost of the 9-inch Nook HD+ drop from $269 to $179 (for a 16GB model) and $299 to $209 (32GB), while the 7-inch Nook HD comes down from $199 to $149 (8GB) and $229 to $179 (16GB).
That price drop makes it more competitive with Amazon, which sells its entry-level Kindle Fire at $159, with its Fire HD costing $199 and 8.9-inch Fire HD tablet priced upwards of $269.
The Barnes and Noble offer is particularly noteworthy since the company introduced support for the Google Play store to its tablet line last week, meaning that users can access more than 700,000 apps and games, and millions of songs, movies and TV shows from the Android app store. That’s a significant boost up from its own content store, which was comparatively under-stocked, and it essentially makes the Nook range a more competitive rival to Android tablets.
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Barnes and Noble has struggled to reproduce the success of its retail business as a hardware and content seller, and it has tried out a series of price incentives this year. In March, it began offering a NOOK Simple Touch e-reader for free with every purchase of a Nook HD+.
The NOOK HD+ was supposed to be the company’s move to shake up the industry, offering a full HD, 1920×1280 display and access to multimedia content such as music, films and games. It was an aggressive response to the Kindle Fire HD, in short, and competes in a space that includes the iPad and Google’s Nexus tablets.
Looking at the rest of the market, Google’s Nexus 7 is priced from $199 and its Nexus 10 retails from $399. Apple’s iPad mini starts at $329, a non-Retina iPad is priced from $399, with the Retina display models costing upwards of $499. Conscious of price, Nook.com has a dedicated section for comparing the price of its devices with the rest of the market.
The reductions mirror a similar price drop in the UK where — as part of the ‘Get London Reading‘ initiative — the Nook HD was reduced to £129 (down from £159), and the NOOK HD+ priced down to £179 (from £229).
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Headline image via Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
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