You’ve probably heard this question before, perhaps even pondered it yourself; “Which is better, the Kindle or the Nook?”. This has been quite the heated debate ever since the first Nook hit the markets to challenge Amazon’s Kindle.
With both the Kindle and the Nook having their own respective advantages and disadvantages there’s never really been a clear cut answer to the infamous question of which is better, and this problem is only exacerbated by the fact that both the Kindle and the Nook each have several different models to choose from and compare with.
In this article I will be comparing the Kindle Fire with the Nook Tablet, as each are very similar in terms of features and are top of the line models for both the Kindle and Nook respectively. I will list the pros and cons of each so that you may decide for yourself which is better for you.
Kindle Fire: The Pros and Cons
Pros:
Content from Amazon
With the Kindle Fire, all the content (E-Books, apps, etc.) will come from Amazon. This gives you a huge selection to choose from, and from a very well-known company at that.
Cheaper
At $199 the Kindle Fire is quite a bit cheaper than the Nook Tablet, making the Kindle Fire a good choice for anyone on a budget.
Loads of apps
At over 8,000 apps currently available for the Kindle Fire, you will have a wide range of apps to choose from.
Smaller and weighs less
Although the Kindle Fire is only smaller by a miniscule amount, this can still be a big deal to some, especially if you plan to buy a case for it or will be carrying it around a lot.
Cons:
Can’t expand the storage
While the 8GB storage on the Kindle Fire may be enough for some, for others it can be severely limiting, and without an expandable storage -such as a slot for a microSD card- there’s no way to increase the storage size of the Kindle Fire.
Luckily, Amazon does offer a Cloud service to Kindle Fire users who wish to use it, which has unlimited storage available.
Less RAM
With 512MB of RAM, the Kindle Fire has half the RAM of the Nook Tablet. This means the Kindle Fire will be considerably slower and less responsive than the Nook Tablet.
Nook Tablet: The Pros and Cons
Pros:
Content from Barnes & Noble
Just like how the Kindle Fire receives its content from Amazon, the Nook Tablet receives its from Barnes & Noble. This gives you the huge selection of books and music that Barnes & Noble is known for.
Expandable storage
The Nook Tablet comes with 16GB of storage and allows you to expand the storage by up to 32GB more using a microSD card, giving you much more room to store all your E-Books and apps.
Long battery life
With around 8-9 hours of battery life while watching videos and up to 11.5 hours while reading, the Nook Tablet has a very impressive battery life.
Microphone
The built-in microphone in the Nook Tablet allows you to record messages, and even record yourself reading a children’s book and play it back later.
Cons:
Fewer apps
With just around 1,000 apps currently available, the Nook Tablet has a much smaller choice of apps than the Kindle Fire does.
However, this doesn’t mean the Nook Tablet doesn’t have its fair share of really good apps, it just has fewer.
More expensive
At $249 the Nook Tablet is considerably more expensive than the Kindle Fire, which is something to keep in mind when comparing the features as well.
Conclusion
As you can see, both the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet each have their own set of advantages and disadvantages to owning them.
Regardless, both are very good tablets and both are also very similar. Which one is better entirely depends on your tastes and what you plan to use it for.