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Matt Brian
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Three weeks after its Nook Simple Touch Glowlight e-reader went on sale in the UK, US bookseller Barnes & Noble has today made its popular Nook HD and Nook HD+ Android tablets available to order both online and in stores in the UK, costing £159 an £229 respectively.
Attempting to fight back against Amazon — a company that enjoys a huge percentage of UK ebook and e-reader sales — Barnes & Noble’s tablets are available at 8 UK retailers, including John Lewis, Argos, Asda, Dixons, Sainsbury, Waitrose, Blackwell’s and Foyles, as well as company’s UK-centric website www.nook.co.uk.
For those that preordered their Nook HD or Nook HD+ in October, Barnes & Noble says that they will “arrive throughout the week.”
The Nook HD features 7-inch 1440 x 900 pixel (243 PPI) display, dual-core OMAP 4470 1.3GHz processor, 8GB or 16GB storage (with microSD support), and weights 315 grams. Barnes & Noble says that this makes it “20 percent lighter and a centimeter narrower than Kindle Fire HD.”
Price start at £159 for an 8GB model and the 16GB will set you back £189.
The Nook HD+ is Barnes & Noble’s premium tablet, offering a 9-inch full HD display (256 PPI), 1.5 GHz OMAP4470 dual-core processor, and comes in at 515 grams — apparently the “lightest full HD 9-inch tablet ever invented.”
The 16GB Nook HD+ goes on sale for £229, with the 32GB variant costing £269.
Today’s launch comes soon after Amazon opened orders for its new Kindle Fire tablets and Apple launched its new, smaller tablet — the iPad mini.
With an impressive selection of books, newspapers, magazines and apps available, Barnes & Noble will hope that its retail partners can help drive sales in places where Amazon can’t, undercutting Apple on price with its selection of e-readers and tablets.
It is estimated that Amazon controls around 90 percent of ebook sales in the UK, so Barnes & Noble has a big job on its hands if it believes it can impact a market dominated by its rival.
Image Credit: Scott Olson/Getty
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