NEW YORK — Barnes & Noble unveiled its $249 Nook Tablet on Monday just ahead of the crucial holiday shopping season in a bid for more of the growing markets for e-books and tablet computers.
Barnes & Noble and Amazon are challenging Apple and its dominant — and much more expensive — iPad for a piece of the holiday pie. The Nook arrives just weeks after Amazon released its Kindle Fire tablet, which sells for $199. Barnes & Noble said its device offers more memory and longer battery life.
The bookseller cut the prices on its existing e-readers. The Nook Color is now $199, down from $239, and the Nook Simple Touch black-and-white reader, which has no browser, is now $99, down from $139. The Nook Tablet will be in stores and shipped to customers Nov. 17.
Like the Nook Color, it has a 7-inch color touch screen.
Unlike Amazon, Barnes & Noble doesn’t offer streaming services, but the Nook includes preloaded apps from Hulu and Netflix that allow users to subscribe to stream movies and TV shows.
Morningstar analyst Peter Wahlstrom said the tablet appears to be a solid device.
“At $249, it gives Barnes & Noble customers or potential customers enough to think hard about which device they want,” he said.
Since introducing its first Nook in 2009, Barnes & Noble has spent heavily on its e-book readers and e-bookstore. As people change the way they read, the New York-based company also faces tough competition from discounters and online retailers in the market for traditional books. Barnes & Noble has struggled to turn a profit, and its much smaller rival, Borders, sought bankruptcy protection and then liquidated its assets this year.
In its most recent quarter, Barnes & Noble did report a narrower loss than a year earlier as its revenue edged up 2 percent to $1.42 billion.
The Nook Tablet weighs less than a pound, has a battery that enables nine hours of video watching and comes with 16 gigabytes of memory and an SD slot to add more.
Another selling point: free customer service at the more than 700 Barnes & Noble stores, chief executive William Lynch said.
Analysts at Gartner predict that three of every four tablets sold this year will be an iPad. Apple has sold nearly 29 million since they first came out in April 2010. Barnes & Noble and Amazon generally do not release sales figures.
Tablet wars
Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet
Price: $249
Internal storage: 16 GB
Battery life: 7 hours*
Screen: 7 inches
Weight: 14.1 ounces
Amazon Kindle Fire
Price: $199
Internal storage: 8 GB
Battery life: 8 hours*
Screen: 7 inches
Weight: 14.6 ounces
Kobo Vox
Price: $200
Internal storage: 8 GB
Battery life: 7 hours*
Screen: 7 inches
Weight: 14.2 ounces
Apple iPad 2
Price: $499-$849
Internal storage: 16, 32 or 64 GB
Battery life: 9 hours*
Screen: 9.7 inches
Weight: 21.6 ounces
* maximum battery life advertised by manufacturers
