Nook HD and HD+ go on sale in the UK

Posted on 22 Nov 2012 at 12:42, by Tom Morgan

Barns and Noble has finally launched the Nook HD and HD+ tablets in the UK, nearly two months after first announcing they would be crossing the Atlantic. Both will go head to head with Amazon's Kindle Fire HD in the run up to Christmas.

The Nook HD will cost £159 and £189 for 8GB or 16GB of storage respectively - this might be less than the similarly priced Kindle, but the Nook has an additional MicroSD card slot that will let you add up to 32GB of removable storage on top.

It also has a higher screen resolution - the 7in, 1,440x900 display comfortably beats both the Kindle Fire HD and Google's own Nexus 7. It also weighs less - at 315g, it's almost 80g lighter than the Kindle.

The tablet is powered by an OMAP 4470 dual-core CPU running at 1.3GHz and 1GB of RAM, yet should still last around 10 hours on battery power when reading or 9 hours when watching video.

If 7in is too small, B&N have you covered with the Nook HD+ - the 9in, 1,920x1,280 Full HD display isn't quite as impressive as Apple's iPad or the Nexus 10, but it's still an improvement over the smaller Nook that made an impression when we first saw both tablets earlier this year

It too is powered by an OMAP processor, this time running at 1.5GHz, and has an expandable MicroSD card slot for adding extra storage. The 6000mAh battery should last for up to 10 hours of reading or 9 hours of video.

Priced competitively at £229 for a 16GB model or £269 for a 32GB version, it's significantly cheaper than Apple's tablet, but its popularity may depend on the content available in the UK - where iTunes and Amazon currently reign supreme.

Just like their main competitor Amazon, both Nook tablets run a heavily customised version of Google's Android OS designed to make it as easy as possible to purchase, download and view content from the Barns & Noble media library. Despite not running the latest 4.2 Jelly Bean version of Android, B&N has still managed to add individual profiles to make it easier to share the tablet between family members.

Available now through Dixons, Currys, John Lewis, Sainsburys, Waitrose, Argos or Foyles, or directly from B&N at www.nook.co.uk.