But how does the Nook Tablet really stack up to the Fire—or, say, more traditional e-readers like the Amazon Kindle or Barnes & Nobile’s own Nook Simple Touch?

Read on for a few key things you need to know about the new Nook Tablet, starting with…

It’s (almost) the same size as the Kindle Fire, and a little smaller than the iPad
Measuring seven inches diagonally, the Nook Tablet’s display is precisely as large (or as small, depending on your point of view) as the one on the upcoming Kindle Fire, and it’s a couple inches smaller than the iPad 2’s 9.7-inch screen.

Measuring 8.1 by 5 by 0.48 inches, the Nook Tablet’s shell is slightly thicker than the Fire’s 0.45-inch girth. But at 14.1 ounces, it’s also a bit lighter than the 14.6-ounce Fire.

It’s more of a multi-function tablet than a single-purpose e-reader
Like the iPad, the Fire, and the Nook Color before it, the Nook Tablet will surf the web, check your email, play music, display the weather, and yes, even let you read books and magazines from Barnes & Noble’s mammoth (as in 2.5 million volumes) online Nook store. That’s opposed to the smaller, lighter, and cheaper Kindle ($79 and up) and Nook Simple Touch ($99), which are pretty much dedicated e-readers.

You’ll have a hard time seeing the Nook Tablet’s screen outside
The Nook Tablet has an LCD display, same as on the iPad and the Kindle Fire. That means while you’ll be able to watch movies and TV shows and scroll web pages on the Nook Tablet, you’ll also have a tough time seeing its display in the great outdoors, particularly under a bright sun.

It’s $250 less than the iPad 2, but $50 more than the Fire
While the $249 Nook Tablet will be one of the cheapest tablets around (compared, say, to the $499 iPad 2) when it debuts later this month, it’ll still be a bit pricier than the $199 Amazon Fire.

It packs in more memory than the Fire, and it (supposedly) has better battery life
Yes, the Nook Tablet costs more than the Fire—but you’ll also get twice the storage, with Barnes & Noble promising 16GB of on-board memory plus an expansion slot for an optional 32GB microSD memory card.

Barnes & Noble is also claiming up to 11.5 hours of reading or 9 hours of video on the Nook Tablet with a single charge, versus 8 hours of reading and 7.5 hours of video on the Kindle Fire. Whether those numbers hold up after real-world testing, however, remains to be seen.

It runs apps, but can’t access Google’s Android Market
Like the Nook Color before it, the Android-powered Nook Tablet won’t have access to the hundreds of thousands of apps in Google’s Android Market. That said, Barnes & Noble says it’ll offer “thousands” of apps customized for its new tablet, including apps from Netflix, Hulu, and Pandora, along with games like Angry Birds and Scrabble.

You’ll be able to watch videos from Netflix and Hulu
So yes, the Nook Tablet with ship with the aforementioned Netflix and Hulu Plus mobile applications. Keep in mind, though, that you’ll have to subscribe to Netflix ($8 a month) and/or Hulu (ditto) before you start streaming movies or TV shows. The Amazon Fire, meanwhile, will stream movies and TV shows via its $79-a-year Amazon Prime service, which also offers free two-day shipping for purchased items from Amazon’s online store.

Its predecessor, the Nook Color, just got a $50 price cut
You can now snap up last year’s Nook Color, which also comes with a seven-inch color LCD screen, for $199, or $50 off its original $249 sticker price. That said, you’ll have to settle for a less-robust version of the Nook Tablet’s processor, and you won’t get access to Netflix or Hulu. Update: Netflix just announced that its mobile app is, indeed, coming to the Nook Color.

It hasn’t been reviewed yet
So, which of these two bargain-priced tablets—the Amazon Fire, or the Nook Tablet—should you get? (At $499 and up, the larger iPad is in a different category.) Well, neither the Fire nor the Tablet will go on sale until later this month, meaning we’ll have to wait a bit before reviewers get to take a crack at them. Stay tuned.

Have more questions about the Nook Tablet? Let me know!

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Well, here’s the thing: the iPad’s LCD display is, indeed, perfect for watching videos, flicking through color photos, and even reading e-books and digital magazines—provided you’re indoors, with a power socket nearby.

And while the Kindle’s screen can barely scroll through a web page, much less let you stream Netflix, it does a beautiful job of displaying text outside, even in direct sunlight. You’ll also be able to read for days or even weeks between charges.

So, what’s the actual difference between the screens on the Kindle and such tablets as the iPad, the LCD-equipped Kindle Fire, and the new Nook Tablet? Allow me to explain—and don’t worry, I’ll try my best to keep it simple.

The iPad’s display: Jack of all trades, master of none

The iPad (along with most other tablets, smartphones, flat-screen computer monitors, and HDTVs) uses a screen technology called LCD, short for “liquid crystal display.”

Rather than going into the technical details on how an LCD screen works, suffice to say it consists of thousands or even millions of tiny dots, or pixels, that can change color dozens of times a second—fast enough to display a smooth video image, a scrolling web page, or an angry bird.

The downside of LCD, though, is that all those vibrantly colorful, rapidly refreshing pixels aren’t terribly reflective, meaning that light (like sunlight) doesn’t bounce off of them all that well.

For that reason, an LCD must be illuminated by a steady backlight, and that demands constant power—from, say, a wall outlet (in the case of the HDTV in your living room, or the PC on your desk) or a battery (for an iPad, an Android phone, or an iPod Touch). Indeed, one of the biggest reasons that your smartphone needs a charge every night is because of its power-hungry LCD.

And while a backlit LCD screen is easy to read indoors, or in the dark, it pales the moment you step outside. Good luck reading an e-book on your iPad by the pool, under a clear blue sky.

On the other hand, consider the black-and-white screen on a Kindle, or a similar e-reader like the original Barnes & Noble Nook or the Sony Reader.

The Kindle’s E Ink display: Great at displaying text, terrible at motion 

These e-reader devices don’t use LCD screens. Instead, they use a type of display that’s broadly described as e-paper. The Kindle and the Nook Touch use a particular type of e-paper display, made by a company called E Ink.

Unlike LCD, these so-called “E Ink” displays don’t need a backlight—and in fact, an E Ink screen looks better and better the brighter it is outside.

How does an E Ink screen work? Well, here’s one way of looking at it: a pool table covered by thousands of billiard balls, with each ball painted black on one side and white on the other. When the balls are turned in just the right way, you’ll see words or even pictures.

All these billiard balls do a fantastic job of reflecting light. And here’s the real beauty of an E Ink display: it only uses power when it “turns” its thousands of billiard balls from one side to another, to form a new page. When the page is just sitting there, the display doesn’t use any power at all. (Of course, a snoozing e-reader device may still use a trickle of power for its built-in clock or wireless radio.)

Now, E Ink displays aren’t really made of thousands of tiny billiard balls; instead, we’re talking countless pixels with electrically-charged particles capable of displaying many shades of gray, not just black or white. But you get the idea.

What’s the downside of an E Ink display? For one thing, its pixels “refresh” very slowly—just once every second or so, versus dozens of times a second for LCD pixels. In other words, there’s no way you’ll be watching YouTube on an E Ink screen.

Also, while E Ink displays don’t need a backlight, they do need some ambient light to be visible at all. That means if you’re planning on reading your Kindle or Nook in a pitch-black room, you’d better bring a flashlight, too.

And while there are color E Ink displays in development, they don’t offer nearly the same vibrancy as color LCD screens do (or at least, not yet).

The bottom line

Devices like the iPad, an Android phone, the Amazon Fire, and other LCD-equipped gadgets can display just about anything, but they need lots of juice—and the darker the ambient lighting, the better their screens look.

E-readers like the Kindle and the (old) Nook, however, display one thing—text—better than just about anything else, and they can do it without backlighting or constant power.

One display isn’t better than the other, really; they just do different things in different ways.

Have more questions? Let me know!

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Amazon just announced that its Kindle 3G “With Special Offers,” which originally went on sale back in May, is getting a $25 price cut to $139.

Of course, that’s not quite as cheap as Amazon’s $114 Wi-Fi-only “Special Offers” Kindle, but the 3G Kindle has a distinct advantage over its Wi-Fi counterpart: it’ll let you download books wherever there’s cellular 3G coverage, meaning you won’t have to hunt for an available Wi-Fi hotspot. (And no, you won’t need a carrier contract, either.)

The $25 price drop for the ad-supported Kindle 3G comes courtesy of AT&T, which is sponsoring the “Special Offers” version of the 3G-enabled e-reader.

OK, but what kind of advertisements are we talking about here? According to CNET, the “Special Offers” flavor of the Kindle only serves up ads in the screensaver and in a small banner at the bottom of the home screen—and never while you’re deep in a novel. Fair enough.

The just-announced discount bring the 3G-enabled “Special Offers” version of the Kindle down to the same price as Barnes & Noble’s new Nook—the one with the touch-sensitive display, no keyboard, and a smaller shell. Enticing, no doubt—but for now, there isn’t a 3G version of the touchscreen Nook.

So, what do you think: would you be willing to deal with a few ads on the Kindle if it meant saving twenty-five bucks?

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From Engadget:

The reader is a little buggier than we’d hoped for– outside of reading, the touch technology leaves a bit to be desired, and the freezing puts the overall stability a bit in question. Beyond that, however, the Nook serves its main function quite well. This is a great device for just plain reading, and if sales are any indication, there are still plenty of people who want to do just that.

…and Gizmodo:

If you’re looking for a no-nonsense e-reader that’s easy to use, connects to an online book store, handles your side-loaded content (like PDFs), let you interact with other friends who use the Nook store, and rarely has to be charged up, you will love the Simple Touch Nook. In terms of form and design and guts, the hardware is superior to the Kindle.

…ZDNet (which is a little more measured in its praise):

This is a stripped, bare basics version of the Nook that would be ideal for students and anyone else on a budget.

…and CrunchGear:

The new Nook is without question the best standalone Wi-Fi ereader on the market. Note that I added a few weasel words there, and if you’re looking for 3G then the Kindle 3G is still a winner, but as a reading device the Nook is nonpareil.

The Wi-Fi-only Nook is shipping now, by the way, for $139.

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While the Kindle 3G “with Special Offers” (available now) still lacks a touch-sensitive display, it does (of course) boast 3G wireless connectivity—meaning you can download books anywhere there’s a 3G connection. The new, $139 Nook, on the other hand, doesn’t do 3G, leaving e-book lovers at the mercy of the nearest Wi-Fi hotspot.

So, here’s the question: would you rather snag a smaller, nearly button-less but Wi-Fi-only Nook for $139, or cough up $25 more for a 3G-enabled but ad-spouting Kindle that’s about 10 percent bigger than its new touchscreen competitor?

That depends on you, of course. If you do most of your book shopping from the comfort of your home Wi-Fi network, you’ll probably be fine with a Wi-Fi-only e-reader like the touchscreen Nook or Amazon’s cheaper Wi-Fi-only Kindles ($139, or $114 for the Wi-Fi-only “Special Offers” model). Globetrotters, on the other hand, might appreciate the flexibility of buying and downloading books wherever there’s a decent 3G signal.

Thoughts? Fire away below.

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Slated to ship next month for $139 (you can pre-order one right here), the 7.5-ounce, 5 by 6.5-inch Nook looks a little like a squarish, paperback-sized tile, and yes—you’ll be able to turn pages on the Nook’s six-inch e-ink display (the same size as the Kindle’s) simply by swiping your finger.

The shorter, squatter Nook is also missing the Kindle’s full-on QWERTY keypad—and indeed, the only button on the front of the Nook is a single Home key.

Look Ma, no QWERTY!

Barnes & Noble execs took several more shots at the Kindle, noting that the new, 0.47 inch-thick Nook boasts two month’s worth of battery life on a single charge—twice as much as the Kindle’s—while the compact design (ten percent “less bulk”) and soft, contoured back will make for a more comfortable fit in your hand. Or so they say.

Other specifications include 2GB of on-board storage, with the possibility of 32GB more thanks to the microSDHC memory slot; six on-screen fonts, along with seven different sizes; and the ability to share book recommendations with pals via Facebook, Twitter, and email.

But back to the touch-sensitive e-ink display (which, by the way, is also a feature of the just-announced eReader Touch Edition by Kobo)—how did Barnes & Noble do it? After all, Amazon execs have long contended that adding a touch-sensitive layer to an e-ink display would reduce its overall contrast, all for the somewhat subtle (according to Amazon, at least) improvement of being able to swipe to turn a page rather than click a button.

Well, both B&N and Kobo say their new e-ink displays use infrared technology to sense your fingertips, a method that keeps any reduction in screen contrast to a minimum—and indeed, Barnes & Noble reps are crowing that the display on the new Nook has 50 percent more contrast than on the first e-ink Nook.

And with its revamped e-reader, B&N has demonstrated in dramatic fashion the main benefit in going the touchscreen way: a smaller device thanks to the jettisoned QWERTY.

Nice, but the Kindle still has a leg up on the new Nook in at least one regard: 3G, with the touch-sensitive Nook coming only in a Wi-Fi version.

So, which e-reader do you think you’d prefer: the larger but QWERTY-packing Kindle, or the smaller, touchscreen Nook?

Correction: The original version of this post incorrectly stated the new Nook’s estimated battery life. According to B&N, it’s said to last for two months on a single charge, not one. Sorry for the goof.

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