Building on the wave of hype surrounding its announcement of Nook Video Sept. 25, Barnes & Noble debuted two new next generation tablets today. Barnes & Noble's new 7-inch Nook HD and the 9-inch Nook HD+ are available to order now.

We had wondered if Barnes & Noble's Nook Video was quiet confirmation that the company would release a next-generation tablet device to compete with Amazon's new Kindle Fire HD, Apple's rumored new iPad Mini, and Google's Nexus 7 sometime soon. Strangely enough, it looks like we were right.

Nook HD

The Nook HD, a 7-inch tablet starting at $199, has a vastly improved screen, and the highest resolution display of any tablet of its size: 1440 x 900 with 243 pixels per-inch, as well as HD video playback capability of up to 720p. The tablet weighs 11.1 ounces, is 7.7 inches x 5 inches x 0.43 inches, and has a 4050 mAh battery.

Barnes & Noble made a quirky design change with the 7-in. Nook HD by removing the faux carabineer clip seen in the original Nook on the lower left of the tablet body (when held in portrait mode).

The Nook HD for $199 has 8 GB, and the 16 GB version is $249.

Nook HD+

The 9-inch Nook HD+ tablet supports 1080p video and has a 1920 x 1280 resolution. The tablet will be 20 percent lighter and start at nearly half the price of Apple's iPad. Nook HD+ runs a dual-core 1.5 GHz OMAP 4470 processor, while the HD runs a dual core 1.3 GHz OMAP 4470 (compared to the 1.0 GHz dual core OMAP 4430 in the original Nook Tablet).

Nook HD+ weighs 18.2 ounces, is 9.5 inches x 6.4 inches x 0.45 inches, and has a 6000 mAh battery. The tablet comes in a $349 version with 32 GB, as well as the starting $269 16GB version.

Both models will be available in the U.S. in early November at retail stores, including Target and Walmart. Both tablets will ship in the UK in late November.

Each of the tablets comes with new Nook Profiles, which allow the user to switch between password-protected personalized profiles on the same device, keeping the content separate. Both run a version of Android Ice Cream Sandwich and Barnes & Noble's own version of the Android Web browser

Both tablets have new email apps, which support Microsoft Exchange for the first time, as well as Hotmail (if you're one of the tens of people still using it), Gmail, Yahoo, AOL and others. Barnes & Noble officials said they will take advantage of Microsoft's recent $300 million investment in the company, making use of Microsoft's marketing prowess and the addition of Exchange to the devices. That certainly explains Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's recent statements that the future of his company is in hardware. 

Oddly, neither of the tablets has a camera, a feature promoted heavily in many other similar devices on the market. In an interview, company executive Bill Saperstein explained that Barnes & Noble was "not trying to be all things to all people" and said the devices were built with powerful processors and high-quality displays to concentrate on consumption of content in books, music and videos, rather than on video chat and photo-taking.

The original 7-inch Nook Tablet, which was released in November 2011 for $249, now starts at $179.

In making the announcement, Barnes & Noble dealt a successful blow in the fight against Apple's popular 9.7-inch iPad, which starts at $499. Although, the price and size differentials will only remain an advantage until Apple unveils its highly-rumored new Apple iPad Mini.

Announced Sept. 25, Nook video will be available on both tablets. Like Amazon Instant Video, Barnes & Noble's Nook Video will allow you to stream or download videos you've purchased. At this point it's unclear if Barnes & Noble has additional studios on board, and the company hasn't provided many details on the service, so the announcement is a bit of a teaser.

"Through deals with these and other major studios, the Nook Video catalog will offer something for everyone in the family to enjoy, including Disney-Pixar's Brave and Toy Story 3, Marvel's The Avengers, 21 Jump Street, Awkward, The Artist, Breaking Bad, Dora the Explorer, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Spartacus, Magic City, The Walking Dead, True Blood, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter movies, The Dark Knight, The Hangover and many more."

Both tablets also have laminated displays with no air gaps for better clarity and to reduce reflection and glare.

Barnes & Noble officials made a point of noting that Target and Walmart will carry the new tablets, but the stores will not sell Amazon's tablets. In the last six months both Target and Wal-Mart have dropped Amazon's Kindle line of devices from their stores. Those retailers reportedly objected to Amazon's use of ads in its tablets because the advertising competes with the retailers' own advertisers.

Barnes & Noble is offering its tablets without "annoying ads as with Amazon's tablets." Amazon requires customers to pay $15 to lose the advertising, which makes the Nook tablets "a better value than Amazon's," Barnes & Noble said.

Nook tablets receive content via Wi-Fi, although both tablets also have Bluetooth for the first time. Both tablets have microSD ports to expand storage to 64 GB.