Say what?

I read [Engadget’s comparison][1] between the Nook Tablet and the Kindle Fire and that’s what I thought when I read their conclusion that the Fire best the Tablet. Up to that point, they gave the Tablet an edge in form factor, performance, display, reading and specs. The only thing that gave the Fire an edge was Amazon’s cloud services. Even there, with Hulu Plus, Netflix and Pandora the tablet isn’t exactly blown away by the Fire. Despite all that, they prefer the Fire. Again, say what?

For my part, I was in the area and stopped by a Barnes and Noble to checkout the Nook Tablet. The nickel version of my impressions are- I liked it. A lot. Almost bought it on the spot. If it weren’t for my unusual ability to resist technology products (despite my enthusiasm for technology and computers), I probably would’ve brought one home. Then spent the evening trying to justify it to the Wife.

Anyway, if interested, read on after the break for more details.

First, it is comfortable to hold in one hand. I can even manage to swipe the screen with my thumb without difficulty (I have a well-above average sized hand). I’d say it’s right on the edge of feeling too light- close to “feels cheap” territory. I definitely wouldn’t want to drop it. But then, I don’t think any of these tablets would suffer a drop test well.

There are 4 hardware buttons: the “n” button on the face for navigation purposes, 2 volume buttons on the upper right hand side and a power button on the left. Nice and clean. The micro SD slot is located on the rear corner where that distinctive loop thingy is, hidden nicely. I won’t say whether it’s aesthetically pleasing because I’m a pretty poor judge of such things. That said, I know when something offends me and when it really catches my eye. The Table does neither. But then, neither does the iPad, so keep that in mind.

Performance wise there is a noticeable difference from it’s predecessor. Pretty much across the board: browsing, page turns, scrolling, pinch-zooming and so forth. I watched some Hulu Plus stuff and a Youtube video. My exact response was “WOW.” It was like holding a TV in my hands. No stutter, no artifacts in the display. I was so impressed that I started thinking there had to be a gimmick with the network connection. But that made no sense- the device is WiFi only, so there’s no reason to think I wouldn’t get similar performance on my network at home. I also played Angry Birds for a bit and startup was nice an snappy.

I tried out reading for magazines as well as books. I can’t really offer anything definitive here other than, the Tablet made reading them pretty simple. I will say, it seemed a bit odd to swipe side-to-side for books versus vertically for magazine pieces. But then, reading is more vertical in magazines to begin with so this is probably something I could easily adjust to. Besides, actual page turns are accomplished identically. The books also support reading with the table held in landscape. While nice from a consistency of experience perspective, this functionality didn’t strike me as particularly useful.

Overall, the UI was pretty easy to get the hang of. My only quibble is the ‘n’ button, which served as a ‘back’ button as opposed to a ‘home’ button. Touching dead center at the button of the screen brings up a launcher bar. This is all identical to the Color, as near as I could tell. There are likely some quirks here, but I didn’t run into anything offensive or annoying in the time I was using it. Again, I’m not super picky when it comes to things like UI. I’m more of the philosophy that I figure out how it works and use it that way. If bookshelves, launchers, and carousels aren’t your thing, well, I can’t help you.

Of all the other niceties missing from it(GPS, Bluetooth, compass, etc.), I think Bluetooth is probably the most useful. Specifically, so an ear piece could be used with it (there is a headphone jack). Even so, I’m pretty sure I could make do. The fact is, I’m looking for something that I could do some surfing and reading with primarily. Anything else is a convenience. As I have no real ties to Amazon or need for cloud services, I like what the Tablet has to offer much more so that the Fire, which strikes me as very compelling for Amazon customers; not so much for everyone else.