Barnes and Noble giving away Nook Simple Touch with every Nook HD+ purchase in limited promo

Posted on 22/03/2013 by Joseph Volpe

Americans love a good bargain -- especially, when it's a twofer. Barnes and Noble, arguably the only real competitor to Amazon's Kindle juggernaut, has just announced a promotion to get as many of its Nook readers into consumers' hands as possible. Starting March 24th and running until the end of the month, consumers that purchase the Nook HD+ online, in-store or at select big box retailers will also be given a free Nook Simple Touch. The limited promotion comes hot on the heels of rumors that B&N would start to de-emphasize hardware production for the Nook line in favor of its content services; a rumor the company publicly shot down. Still, there's no denying e-reader market share's been an uphill battle for B&N, even if the segment is seeing marginal year-over-year increases. Numbers aside, if you've been holding out on joining the digital reading fray because of cost, now's the time to make the switch.

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Barnes & Noble signs licensing agreement with MGM, Lionsgate, National Geographic and more for Nook Video service

Posted on 07/03/2013 by James Trew

Barnes and Noble has just dealt up some good news for movie-loving owners of its Nook HD and HD+ slates, with the announcement of new licensing agreements with a host of studios. Lionsgate, MGM, Paramount, Relativity Media as well as National Geographic, Little Pim and Film Buff are all part of the new wave of additions to the Nook Video line-up. This means titles such as The Hunger Games, Mad Men, and the Twilight Movies will be available for rent or purchase starting today. Little Pim provides foreign language learning for kids, so there's something to expand the minds of the little ones too. This, combined with that UltraViolet integration and the odd item at the FCC suggests that Barnes & Noble is taking its media content offering more seriously than ever. We're certainly not complaining.

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Engadget’s tablet buyer’s guide: winter 2013 edition

Posted on 04/02/2013 by Jon Fingas

As we begin 2013, we're stuck in a kind of tablet limbo. Most companies rushed to get devices out for the fall, while the models we saw at CES 2013 aren't yet shipping. As such, it's a mostly familiar deck, with Apple, Google and Microsoft once again striving for the top spot. That said, there are new entries from Amazon and ASUS, and many of us who didn't score some sweet loot this holiday season have a slate-sized pile of cash to spend. If you're in that situation, continue on for our first tablet guide of 2013.

Note: If you're looking for tablets with an Atom or Core i5 CPU, you'll find those in our forthcoming laptop buyer's guide, since they have the same guts as notebooks (or netbooks, in some cases). For the purposes of this tablet guide, we define tablets as slate-type devices with low-power ARM processors.

Filed under: Tablets, Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, ASUS, Google, Amazon

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Barnes & Noble Nook HD+ review: a high-def 9-inch tablet at an entry-level price

Posted on 12/12/2012 by Brian Heater

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A couple of weeks back, we referred to the Nook HD as a "tablet with the heart of a reader." And given Barnes & Noble's roots in brick-and-mortar bookstores, the sentiment makes sense; the company has given the world a product that felt a bit like an LCD reader with some solid tricks up its sleeve. While it shares the same core operating system as the HD, the HD+ brings a bit more to the hardware party -- namely, a high-def, 9-inch HD display. The change shifts some of the product's focus toward multimedia, with a particular emphasis on the recently announced Nook Video service. That, coupled with a $269 price tag, makes for a pretty compelling combination. But is it enough to ensure that Barnes & Noble will have a winner on its hands for the holiday? Find out after the break.

Gallery: Barnes & Noble Nook HD+ review

Continue reading Barnes & Noble Nook HD+ review: a high-def 9-inch tablet at an entry-level price

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Barnes & Noble Nook HD+ tentatively rooted for the paper UI-phobic (video)

Posted on 09/11/2012 by Jon Fingas

There's no doubt that Barnes & Noble in love with the paper-like interface of the Nook HD+. Not all of its new owners are quite so taken with the retro chic, with the proof being XDA-Developers member verygreen's early root for the Android tablet (and possibly its HD cousin). The preliminary code is enough to offer a glimpse of a more digital interface as well as teasers of a CyanogenMod port and booting from SD cards. Before racing to use the instructions at the source, be aware that the root's usefulness may vary wildly in the near future -- as of this writing, a familiar defense mechanism dating back to the Nook Color has kicked in that rejects the root and restores itself to factory stock after eight failed boot attempts. That there's a root at all will nonetheless be a comfort in the long run to those who like the idea of a budget tablet without the enforced nostalgia for dead trees.

Continue reading Barnes & Noble Nook HD+ tentatively rooted for the paper UI-phobic (video)

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Barnes & Noble Nook HD+ tentatively rooted for the paper UI-phobic (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Nov 2012 18:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Engadget’s tablet buyer’s guide: fall 2012 edition

Posted on 05/11/2012 by James Trew

Three months is a long time in tablet-land, it seems. Since we last brought you a buyer's guide, a few things have changed. In fact, this is probably the biggest shake-up yet, with not only the long-rumored iPad mini making an appearance, but also new offerings from two other big guns -- Microsoft and Google. Oh, and that means there's a whole new species of device altogether. With Windows RT finally shipping, there's new hardware to go with it, and we expect to see more popping up on the list in the months to come. This is all good news for you prospective tablet owners, as more competition can only mean more choice. With more options, though, comes more confusion. That's where we come in, armed with a few notable picks. Read on to find out what made the cut this season.

Continue reading Engadget's tablet buyer's guide: fall 2012 edition

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Engadget's tablet buyer's guide: fall 2012 edition originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Nov 2012 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Barnes & Noble bolstering Nook Video catalogue, bringing UltraViolet to the HD and HD+

Posted on 30/10/2012 by Jamie Rigg

Barnes & Noble is seriously beefing up its Nook ecosystem by striking deals with studios and other providers to bring a ton of new video content to its HD and HD+ tablets. Debuting alongside the slates, expected to start shipping in the US this week, thousands of SD and HD movies and TV shows from the likes of NBCUniversal, 20th Century Fox and others will be available for your consumption. Brits will get the same opportunity a little later, coinciding with the local release of the tablets closer to the holiday season. B&N won't force you to buy its hardware to enjoy the expanded catalogue, as it'll be releasing free Nook Video apps in the future to access the content from all platforms. What's more, you'll also be able to view UltraViolet video on the HD and HD+, meaning you can watch all that previously purchased content right from the get-go. This is certainly a huge bonus for consumers that have a big UV library, and coupled with all the new content, we wouldn't be surprised if Nook sales start stealing a little heat from the Fire.

Continue reading Barnes & Noble bolstering Nook Video catalogue, bringing UltraViolet to the HD and HD+

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Barnes & Noble bolstering Nook Video catalogue, bringing UltraViolet to the HD and HD+ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Oct 2012 14:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Barnes & Noble’s Nook HD 7-inch Android tablet, hands-on (video)

Posted on 26/09/2012 by Brian Heater

It was roughly this time last year that Amazon's Kindle Fire showed us just how successful an aggressively priced 7-inch tablet could be, becoming, arguably the go-to gift of the last holiday season. This summer, Google upped the ante, showing the world that a $200 tablet could be more than just an OEM-ed content delivery device, enlisting ASUS to design a really solid piece of hardware at a seemingly impossible price.

Barnes & Noble's journey in the space, meanwhile, has been decidedly more convoluted. In mid-October of 2010, the company gave the world the Nook Color -- a product with a wildly original industrial design, but decidedly limited functionality, which was, for most intents and purposes, an LCD-based color e-reader. Halfway through the following year, the device got a Pinocchio-like upgrade, transforming it into an honest-to-goodness tablet, apps and all. The device's celebration was cut short, however, eclipsed entirely by the arrival of the aesthetically (nearly) identical, but internally superior Nook Tablet.

When Amazon announced the release of the Kindle Fire HD and all of its many variants, there was little question that Barnes & Noble had something waiting in the wings as well. After all, much of the bookseller's hardware game plan seems to revolve around going toe-to-toe against Amazon offerings, and since the company beat its chief competition to the market with a glowing reader, a Nook Tablet seemed all but inevitable. With this week's announcements, however, the company has managed to offer up some surprises -- for starters, there's the fact that it's doubled its efforts with the release of two tablets -- with the 7-inch Nook HD and the 9-inch Nook HD+. Then there's the fact that the company has clearly put great effort into the hardware this go-round, rather than offering up yet another rehash of the Color / Tablet lineage. Let's start with the Nook HD, shall we? Join us after the break.

Gallery: Barnes & Noble's Nook HD 7-inch Android tablet, hands-on

Continue reading Barnes & Noble's Nook HD 7-inch Android tablet, hands-on (video)

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Barnes & Noble's Nook HD 7-inch Android tablet, hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Sep 2012 01:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Barnes & Noble announces Nook HD+ 9-inch tablet, we go hands-on (video)

Posted on 26/09/2012 by Brian Heater

Sure we heard some early rumblings about a new tablet from Barnes & Noble, and no, we can't say we were particularly surprised by the revelation -- after all, no one expected the bookstore to sit idly by and let Amazon own the holiday shopping season with its freshly souped-up Kindle Fire line. But the company did manage to offer up a few surprises with today's announcement -- biggest of all (literally, in fact) was the launch of a 9-incher, the Nook HD+. And where the HD borrowed some style cues from B&N's Simple Touch line, its bigger brother is the aesthetic descendent of Nook tablets past, borrowing that long, skinny body and even offering up a winking reference to the carabiner that lent such a dramatic distinction to past products.

That said, we're not simply repeating the move from Nook Color to Nook Tablet here. The Nook HD+ is a far more significant upgrade, even as it pays a little tribute to its predecessors. Barnes & Noble's really gunning to make a splash in the budget tablet space this holiday season, and while the company's clearly betting on the smaller and cheaper HD to be the big seller, a company rep told us that he expects that HD+ to be a sleeper hit for the company. And certainly it's easy to see why the company's got some confidence this time around -- the device is sleek, fast, hi-res and affordable. But can it succeed in such a cutthroat market? Check out some impressions after the break and judge for yourself.

Gallery: Barnes & Noble announces Nook HD+, we go hands-on