While both the Nook Tablet and the Fire are decidedly consumption-only devices, the Nook Tablet appears to be the more well-thought out of the two. Its store is better arranged and easier to use, the battery life is better, and it's less stuttery and aggravating overall. The device still pulls some punches of its own with its e-mail client and storage, and we have some doubts about its ecosystem, but the Nook Tablet is a better device than the Kindle Fire. It's more than good enough to justify the $50 price difference between the two.

I'm glad to see B&N putting up a good fight; there were lots of concerns that the Fire would steamroll it. It still may, due to Amazon's behemoth market clout. But I'd rather not see the world devolve into an Amazon/Apple duopoly.

Barnes & Noble is also well behind when it comes to the selection of third-party applications: it has about 1,000 available today. That compares to just under 10,000 at Amazon, and 500,000 on the iPad.

However, the Nook has these features over the Fire:

_ Faster processor and more memory for software operations, which means faster Web browsing and magazine page-flipping.

_ Longer battery life.

_ Twice as much storage space: 16 gigabytes compared to eight. Don't get too excited about this, though. What Barnes & Noble has left out of its marketing material is that only 1 gigabyte is available for content that isn't bought from Barnes & Noble. Since books don't take up much space and Barnes & Noble doesn't sell movies, much of the 16 gigabytes is likely to be wasted.

_ A slot for memory cards. This is the cure for the lack of memory for non-Barnes & Noble content. You can add another 16 gigabytes of memory by buying a $20 card.

_ The ability to load books from third-party stores like Google Books. On the Kindle, you can only read books from Amazon.

_ Netflix streams are sharper. Barnes & Noble initially claimed they were in high definition, but that X-wing doesn't fly: the Tablet's screen isn't high-definition.

_ Children's books with built-in narration (some Kindle apps have this).

_ A microphone. This doesn't have a lot of uses at the moment, but it does allow you to record your own narration.

Apart from the ones mentioned above, the Kindle Fire has these features over the Nook:

_ A lower price: $199.

_ The Comixology app, the most popular one for comic books. On the Nook, you're pretty much limited to buying electronic comics from Barnes & Noble.