[TomOfTTB]

Spec wise it beats the Kindle Fire in just about every category (More RAM, more Storage Potential, Better Battery Life). The question is will B&N stick with it and keep pushing.

Two things make me think they will.

1. They recently made a deal with Appcelerator to favor apps built using those tools and to provide more support for those developers (for those who don't know Appcelerator allows you to write iPhone and Android apps with web tools like RoR, Python, Javascript, CSS, etc...)

2. They are offering support in all B&N stores.

So they're being developer friendly to get more apps created (as opposed to Amazon where you have to give them permission to give your app away just to get in their store). And they're working to draw in casual users.

To my eyes that makes the Nook Tablet a very attractive offering both for consumers to buy and developers to build on.

[r00fus]

Copying Apple's Genius Bar idea is a great competitive move vs. Amazon (what, Mr. Bezos, is that no-footprint advantage of yours... chafing?)

Some folks are of the opinion that Amazon will wipe the floor with B&N, but I think B&N aren't going to give up easily.

[joebadmo]

I've had two friends get overnighted new kindles to replaces ones that they broke.

Amazon's customer service is, quite frankly, better than almost any brick and mortar store's customer service. And I don't even have to leave my home.

It's an interesting play on B&N's part, and I don't really see how it can play out well for them. They've more or less acknowledged that the future of almost all of their wares is digital. Can the expense of running brick and mortar stores for customer service possibly be worth the added cost to the customer? Seems doubtful.

[tlholaday]

> Can the expense of running brick and mortar stores for customer service possibly be worth the added cost to the customer?

Increase the size of the coffee area, have stand-up promotional materials for new releases, figure out some digital equivalent of autographed copies so that authors can continue to have readings, etc.

Barnes & Noble, your neighborhood salon.

[MisterMerkin]

So they're competing with Starbucks at that point. (Or partnering since much of the coffee in B&N is Starbucks already.)

[alttag]

  > ... I don't really see how it can play out well for them.
  > Can the expense of running brick and mortar stores for 
  > customer service possibly be worth the added cost to 
  > the customer? Seems doubtful.

Certainly hasn't worked out well for Apple. ... Oh, wait ...

Combined with free wifi, books that can be browsed, in store returns, they've possibly got a chance.

Will it convert me? No, I'm a Prime user with some positive AMZN customer service experiences under my belt. So, maybe B &N needs to do more courting of the tech crowd.

[inportb]

I had the same experience. My Kindle 2 stopped working, and I got a new one for free in the mail two days after I called Amazon up about it. On the other hand, I also love my h4x'd first-generation Nook.

[mahyarm]

Amazon's only return unopened items unless faulty policy is something that is customer unfriendly compared to a typical big box store. And as far as I know, you have to go to a shipping office to ship the return back. Can you just print a label and wait for the post man to come pick it up for no cost?

[jrockway]

Not true. Amazon's response to support requests is, in my experience, "we're overnighting you a new widget. do whatever you want with the old one."

This isn't documented, but it's how things have always worked for me. Sometimes my request is "the item in the description is not the item I've received" and I eventually give up after receiving the same wrong item 4 times. That's how ingrained the process is; they don't read my email, they just mail me a replacement. Oh well.

[joebadmo]

I'm not really sure what the actual return policy is, but both of my friends had had the kindles for a while before they broke them. They then contacted Amazon to see what their options were and got replacements for free.

I just returned an unopened item. I just printed the label, put it back in the original shipping box and left it on the porch for the mail carrier to pick up.

[w33ble]

I'm really anxious to see some comparison videos of the two. Just because the Nook Tablet looks better on paper doesn't mean it will be in practice. Amazon spent a lot of time on their interface and it actually looked pretty enjoyable to use. It looks like B&N have a tweaked interface at least, but I really want to see them used side by side.

In any event, the timing on this announcement is pretty good. I was already sold on the Kindle Fire but I didn't do the pre-order thing. Now B&N has put me in "wait to see the reviews" mode at least.

[TomOfTTB]

Hardly the same thing but you can get a little out of Engadget's hands-on videos...

Kindle Fire: http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/28/amazon-kindle-fire-impres...

Nook Tablet: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/07/barnes-and-nobles-nook-ta...

[w33ble]

Yeah, I caught the video on Engadget too, but they don't actually flip through anything on the device, they just hold it and show you how it looks, then play a video on it.

I want to know what the interface looks like, because the interface videos I've seen on the Fire look pretty stellar. If the Tablet can't match the Fire, then all the hardware specs in the world won't make it appealing to me.

[BandN_Boy]

I haven't played with the new one but the Nook Color user interface sometimes strikes me as a bit glitchy in it's animations. I don't know if this is because of the Nook's hardware or because compositing in Android isn't great (I haven't personally used any other Android devices, so I have nothing to compare it to).

[ceejayoz]

Appcelerator Desktop lets you use Ruby, Python, etc. (PHP too), but not Appcelerator Mobile. It's all JS.

[BandN_Boy]

"The question is will B&N stick with it and keep pushing."

I work part-time at a B&N, which doesn't really give me any info that you guys don't have, but I am sure that they are dedicated to this course. Nook sales are an increasing part of store and company sales.

Some things I don't care for is that, at least at my store, they have reduced the amount of books we have in stock and there is talk of getting rid of our music/DVD department. It often seems to me, especially since we sell Nooks at other resellers, that B&N management could be laying the groundwork for leaving brick and mortar stores behind.