Google's Nexus 7 and Barnes & Noble's Nook HD tablet are two of the most equally matched tablets in the 7-inch market, but which is best for you? Before you rush to pick up a tablet, follow along for a review of the best features each device has to offer to ease your decision-making.
Nook HD
In its review of the tablet, tech site The Verge thought the Nook HD was a tremendous improvement over past versions of the tablet, and thinks it's the first offering from Barnes & Noble that truly coalesces the qualities of great e-readers with media consumption devices.
Its specifications include:
USA Today praised the device's capabilities as an e-reader, and lauded its screen quality as easily better than Amazon's Kindle Fire HD and Google's Nexus 7. "Boasts a superb display compared with its main smaller-screen competition," said the newspaper.
USA Today continued: "Barnes & Noble boasts a compelling lineup of children's content, with 35,000 chapter books and approximately 4,000 interactive kids picture books. A read-and-record feature lets parents or grandparents record themselves reading to Junior."
Nexus 7
The Nexus 7 has become arguably the most popular 7-inch Android tablet. In the latest month of sales, the Nexus 7 sold at a clip of about 1 million per month, according to Asus, which builds the device.
Android 4.2 Jelly Bean OS; Multi-Touch 7" Backlit IPS Display; 1280 x 800 Native Resolution (216 ppi); 1.2GHz NVIDIA Tegra 3 Quad-Core CPU; Internal 1GB of RAM & 32GB Storage; 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth & 4G; Scratch-Resistant Corning Glass Screen; Micro-USB Port, Docking Port, Audio Jack; G-Sensor, Gyroscope, GPS, Light Sensor; 1.2MP Webcam, Stereo Speakers, Dual Mics
The Nexus 7 runs Android 4.2, which is only found on a handful of devices at this point, such as the Galaxy Nexus handsets, like the newly released LG-branded Nexus 4 smartphone from Google, as well as Nexus10. The version shares its Jelly Bean codename with Android 4.1, and offers only minor differences compared to that iteration, chiefly the addition of 'Gesture Typing' and a 360-degree panorama feature for the camera app.
"Nexus 7 brings you the best of Google-YouTube, Chrome, Gmail, Maps-and all the great content from Google Play in a slim, portable package that fits perfectly in your hand," said Google in its statement. "To give you more room for all that great content you can now get Nexus 7 with 16GB ($199) or 32GB ($249) of storage. But we also wanted to make this highly portable tablet even more mobile. So we added HSPA+ mobile data. Nexus 7 is now also available with 32GB and HSPA+ mobile ($299), which can operate on more than 200 GSM providers worldwide, including AT&T and T-Mobile in the U.S."