Both of the book giants are going head to head again over their respective tablets. The Nook eReader may give the Kindle Touch a run for the money with many people saying the display is superior. However the Nook Color is neither here nor there when it comes to competing with the Kindle Fire because it doesn't have the same software support and has a lower technical specification.

Nonetheless, the Nook Tablet is still worth sitting up and taking notice of because for just $50 extra you are getting more tablet for your money. But "will you need it"?

Each table comes with the same Texas Instruments dual core processor clocked at 1 GHz. The tablets could have been clocked faster but we think that would have reduced the battery life too much. They both have similar 7 inch screens which have 1024x600 resolutions at 169 pixels per inch. The compact form factor makes the devices easier to hold for longer durations than a larger device like the iPad or Galaxy Tab and makes them more acceptable for lounging around and watching a movie.

It's at this point that the $250 price tag of the Nook Tablet starts to become apparent because the hardware is slightly better than the Kindle Fire. First of all, the Nook Tablet comes with 1 GB of RAM compared to the Kindle Fire with 512 MB. We're not too sure why since both devices are consumption devices rather than creative tablets and there doesn't seem to be much need for the extra 512 MB except for the perception.

Another reason developers and hackers have been anxious to get their hands on the Nook Tablet is because it comes with 16 GB of storage, which again is double that of the Kindle Fire. Remember, more storage means more music, videos and apps that can be stored. The addition of the Micro SD card on the Nook Tablet also allows for extra storage space. The reason that the Nook Tablet has more storage capacity is likely because B&N doesn't have the cloud computing infrastructure like Amazon. Where Amazon encourages its customers to upload everything to the cloud, Barnes & Noble customers have to depend on the device storage.

Both devices are somewhat conspicous for the hardware which they lack such as a camera, GPS, compass, Bluetooth, accelerometer and 3G. This is very likely designed to keep the costs down. However the Nook Tablet does have a microphone which allows parents to narrate a book and the child can play it back at any time. This is a cool feature offered by Barnes & Noble.

Numerous tech blogs have done reviews of both tablets and something that is apparent is that while Amazon has barely touched the fundamental engineering, the Nook Tablet has done some significant under the hood re-engineering, most likely to squeeze as much power out of the hardware as possible. This is the reason why Barnes & Noble claim the Nook Tablet has a battery life of over 11 hours compared to Kindle Fire's battery life of 8 hours.

At this point you might be thinking that the Nook Tablet is beating the Kindle Fire decisively. And in terms of hardware you are right. But are you willing to pay the additional fifty dollars just for the extra hardware?

Keep in mind that the real advantage for the Kindle Fire is the access to Amazon's vast media library and cloud storage. On this front the Nook Tablet simply can't compete and since both tablets are essentially consumption devices, if you want the largest and best choice of books, movies, TV shows, apps and music then you simply can't do better than the Kindle Fire.

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