The Kindle Fire and Barnes and Noble Nook are two of the most popular tablets out there. While the iPad sports some impressive features itself, its high price point is a turn off for some. Here is a comparison of the more moderately priced, but still fully loaded Nook and Fire.
The features I find most important in my mobile devices are battery life, display and image resolution and, most importantly to anyone else who is constantly seeing parallels between their own life and that of the subjects of the show Hoarders, storage space.
It can be an entire day before I’m able to plug my device into an outlet to recharge, so for me, battery life is huge. The Nook takes the slight lead in this category as its battery allows for eight hours of uninterrupted use of the device. This is a huge selling point for me and while the Kindle Fire has a comparable showing on the wrong side of about eight hours, it just seems like the Nook is doing more with its battery. What I mean by this mostly has to do with the screen and display. The color and brightness of the Nook is great. It’s backlit just like Fire but it’s resolution is much crisper. Also, some of the apps on the Fire look ill-fitted for the unit’s display. The presentation on the Nook is worth noting, as its homepage allows for customization more in the realm of a computer’s desktop. Items can be dragged and moved across the numerous home screens to allow for a personalized organizational system.
So the Nook wins in battery life and display but the most important category for me goes to the Fire. The Nook only allows for 1GB of audio, video and picture content to be held on the device without the addition of an SD card. This is compared to 6GB of user content storage on the Fire. If I’m going to pay $50 more for the Nook than the Fire, I want to see a lot more storage as a standard.
If you’re like me and you like to use your mobile device not only as an e-reader but also a combination photo album and music player, your best bet is to go with the Fire. If you’re willing to drop $50 extra for lovely display in addition to another add-on for more storage space, the Nook is for you.
Melissa is a guest writer and tech junkie with a penchant for getting deals with Dell coupons.