Barnes & Noble Nook HD

It’s a shame that the recent price reduction by Barnes & Noble of its entire e-book reader and tablet line, including the Nook HD, is reportedly about the company’s losses in electronics. After all, few devices so firmly keep the reader in mind with lightweight and ebook-first technology. Ah well, for the time being the Nook HD now represents one of the best – if not the tops – in budget-priced tablet devices; get ‘em while you can!

The major selling point of the Nook HD in Barnes & Noble publicity was the promise that the product is in fact “the lightest 7-inch tablet on the market,” and e-book aficionados who appreciate the Barnes & Noble name will enjoy toting the Nook HD over the heavier Amazon Kindle Fire and Google Nexus 7. And while the Nook HD isn’t “HD+” like its companion model, the 1440 x 990-pixel display makes reading a breeze. Again, at this price…

Specs-wise, the Nook HD is typical of the Barnes & Noble breed: The processor is a 1.5 GHz TI OMAP 4470 CPU and the 1 GB of RAM is either 16 GB or 32 GB of internal storage space, with add-ons of up to 64 GB possible with micro SD cards. WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 are also supported.

Disadvantages? The window of opportunity to take advantage of the Barnes & Noble digital catalogue may be closing, and the truth is this company has fewer titles than Amazon. The tech-minded will want to consider that a firmware hack to get through to Amazon on the Nook HD does in fact exist.