The three largest eBook Reader companies have now a new and bright coloured tablet just in time for the Christmas period. Every of them trying to duplicate the last year success of the Nook Color. Comparing the specifics of Nook tablet with Kindle Fire and Kobo Vox, recently on the market, we may notice that the three devices are very similar.
The Amazon Kindle Fire
They use Android and their screen is similar, both in size and in attributes for reading ebooks, watching videos, listening to music, surfing the web, using e-mail.
However, Kobo Vox hardly measures up to faster processors of Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet. In favor of Kobo, the KF and NT aren’t avaible outside Us, whilst Kobo Vox is. As another advantage for Vox, this device not only uses Android 2.3 OS, but also allows users to run on the Android Market for applications, while Amazon and B&N decided to use only their AppStores.
Kindle Fire major point is its link with all digital Amazon contents for Android: music, video, e-books; moreover it also includes free Cloud Memory for its contents. Kindle Fire Prime Member can also get free eBooks for rent and watch streaming videos. The main handicap Kindle Fire has is its low memory not expandable because of the lack of a memory card slot, following the same logic of the eBook Reader. Thismove has in fact its specific meaning, as Amazon target is to offer a more and more integrated system through the Cloud Memory,as a virtual office space.
Nook tablet advantage is its double RAM. Through its microSD card, it can host files up to 48GB, which may seem foolish compared to Kindle Fire. But, if used properly, Cloud memory can fully compensate the lack of a microSD. The Nook also has an active community of hacking, which builds customized ROM to convert itself in a more complete tablet. As the main disadvantage, the Nook appstore is more limited and some applications cost much more than in other stores.
The Kobo Vox
Obviously, it’s only a generic comparison among the three devices. Since their hardware is very similar, this relation was focused on performance and software.
Now comparing Nook Tablet to the Nook Color, a device halfway between a Tablet and an eBook Reader, the main differences concern: memory, weight, processing speed and battery life.
First, the processor: the Nook Color uses a processor running 800 MHz - overclocking to 1.2 GHz – while Nook Tablet uses 1 GHz processor.
Nook Color uses an the older Android release 2.2 and has only 8 GB of internal memory and 512 MB of RAM, despite new model’s 1GB.
Color battery life is, on average, 7-8 hours – like the Kindle Fire - while the Nook Tablet has a battery life of 11.5 hours (wireless off). In addition, both devices have identical size (8.1″ x 5″ x .48″), but different weight ( Color weighs 48 grams more than Tablet). Tablet display is surely better, but no time yet to really test their performance, which will be the true litmus test of the two devices.
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