If it’s a cheap tablet you’re after, Barnes & Noble and Amazon want your business. Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble’s $249 Nook Tablet both look promising on paper—the former with its suite of Amazon services, and latter with its superior specs and more diverse streaming video offerings—but chances are, you’ve only got room for one tablet on your holiday wish list.

As is often the case with gadgets, finding the best 7-inch tablet is a matter of figuring out your personal needs. Below, I’ll divvy up the strengths of the Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire so you can figure out what’s most important.

Apps

The Nook Tablet and the Kindle Fire both have app stores, but Amazon’s tablet has a bigger selection. Its gaming library, in particular, is much more diverse, with categories for RPGs, strategy games, shooters and more, whereas the Nook focuses mostly on lighter fare. The Amazon Appstore also offers more free apps, and gives away one paid app every day.

Advantage: Kindle Fire

Streaming Media

Netflix is integrated with the Nook Tablet, pushing recommendations to the user’s home screen, and Hulu Plus is pre-loaded, making Barnes & Noble’s tablet a strong streaming video device. Although the Kindle Fire has its own streaming video service through Amazon Prime, it’s only ideal for people who already subscribe to the $79-per-year service for something else, be it the limited book rental library or free two-day shipping. For everyone else, the Nook Tablet’s video services have a better selection and wider availability on other devices, such as smartphones and game consoles. Streaming music is a toss-up, with both tablets offering apps for Pandora, MOG and Rhapsody. (UPDATE: The Kindle Fire will be getting a Netflix app at launch. I’m still giving the edge to the Nook Tablet for now for its Hulu Plus support.)

Advantage: Nook Tablet

Reading

The Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet hit all the same feature checkboxes for e-reading. Both devices offer millions of e-books, plus newspapers and magazines. For parents, the Nook Tablet gets a slight edge for its “Read and Record” capability, which lets you record your own story narrations, but Amazon Prime members will prefer the Kindle Fire for its selection of free e-book rentals. Comic book fans will be divided; the Nook Tablet will have graphic novels from Marvel, while the Kindle Fire has a deal with DC.

Advantage: Toss-Up

On-Demand Media

No contest here. The Kindle Fire will let you purchase or rent videos on demand, and includes access to Amazon’s MP3 store. Best of all, any content you purchase from Amazon is stored online for free, so you won’t have to worry about wasting storage space on the device. The Nook Tablet doesn’t have a way to let you buy music and video on the device, so you’ll have to bring your own content from elsewhere.

Advantage: Kindle Fire

Straight-Up Specs
Although the Nook Tablet is $50 more expensive than the Kindle Fire, you get your money’s worth in raw power. Barnes & Noble’s slate has twice the RAM at 1 GB and twice the built in storage at 16 GB, plus a microSD card slot for even more storage. Otherwise, the two tablets have similar specs, including dual-core processors and 7-inch, 1024-by-600 resolution displays. If you plan to hack either tablet to run a pure version of Android, the Nook Tablet’s extra RAM will be worth the extra scratch, but either way, its generous storage will come in handy.

Advantage: Nook Tablet

Little Details and Intangibles

Specs and features only go so far. Both tablets look good on paper, but either one could be buggy, laggy, unresponsive or otherwise broken at launch. And although Barnes & Noble brags about how the Nook Tablet is lighter than Amazon’s Kindle Fire, the two have very similar proportions, so the difference really comes down to how each one feels in your hands.

Barnes & Noble has one more advantage in its ability to offer free support, free Wi-Fi and special offers for Nook Tablet owners at its retail stores. Amazon, meanwhile, plays to its own strength in web services. The Kindle Fire offers free cloud storage for purchased content, and includes a web browser called Silk that taps Amazon’s web servers to load pages faster. I’m not going to pick a winner or categorically declare one tablet better than the other—at least not until I’ve tried both of them in finished form.

[This post republished from Techland.]

Today, B&N announced another new Nook–and this one, it appears, is meant to take the Kindle on more squarely than either of its predecessors.It’s $139 (matching the price of the Wi-Fi Kindle, but not the ad-supported one). It looks like a Kindle, with a gray case and 6″ E Ink screen (and no color touchscreen strip, the most striking feature of the original Nook). It stresses great battery life–in fact, Barnes & Noble is claiming two months on a charge, vs. one month for the Kindle.

Unlike the Kindle, the new Nook has a touch-enabled screen, which lets it shrink the size of the keyboard by ditching the Kindle’s physical keyboard. B&N says it weighs under 8 ounces, compared to 8.5 ounces for the Kindle. And the company says that the E Ink display has 80 percent smoother page turns and less of the annoying flashing effect when you flip a page compared to  ”other eReaders”–which, I suspect, includes the Kindle.

The new Nook has some of the features of its pricier color brother, including the Nook Friends social-networking and book-sharing tools. But it doesn’t appear to have an app store (and it runs Android 2.1, an old version of the OS–Android is presumably just plumbing on this reader, not a point in its favor).

Barnes & Noble is calling this Nook “The Simple Touch Reader,” which stresses one Kindle-like feature (simplicity) and one potential advantage over the Kindle (touch). Until now, the biggest single advantage the Kindle has had over the Nooks has been that simplicity–the degree to which the device, in Jeff Bezos’s words, disappears in your hands. Matching it will be no cakewalk–as evidenced by the earlier Nooks and all the other non-Amazon e-readers that aren’t as pleasingly minimalist–so I’m really curious to try the new Nook and see how B&N did.

The reader ships on June 10th, and is available for preorder now.

BeamItDown’s iFlow Reader, a digital reading app for iOS, relied on e-book sales for revenue. But because Apple takes a 30 percent cut of anything purchased within an app, and e-book publishers only give 30 percent their revenue to the book seller, iFlow Reader would actually lose money on every book sold.

“We put our faith in Apple and they screwed us,” BeamItDown’s blog post says.

BeamItDown may not be the last victim, either, because the policy that caused this small company to go out of business may soon be unavoidable for major e-book players like Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

It’s no secret that Apple takes a 30 percent cut of all in-app purchases, but as of now, big e-book sellers sneak around the rule by launching their book stores through the Safari browser and billing customers directly.

Back in February, Apple made it clear that this workaround is not allowed. “We are now requiring that if an app offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, that the same option is also available to customers from within the app with in-app purchase,” spokeswoman Trudy Miller told All Things Digital. In other words, Amazon will have to create a bookstore within the Kindle app, opening the door to a 30 percent cut for Apple.

For now, Amazon and Barnes & Noble continue to sell books through the web, but BeamItDown’s Phil Huber thinks this won’t last. In an e-mail, he said app makers will have to comply with Apple’s new guidelines by June 30, the same date that Apple’s in-app subscription policy goes into effect. I can’t confirm this, but it seems plausible.

At that point, E-book sellers have a few choices: walk out of the App Store, hope for special treatment or suck up the iOS losses and make money on other platforms. If you own a lot of Kindle or Nook books, mark the date.

The license fee that Microsoft says it expects makers of Android devices to pay it would make it the only company to collect a royalty on every Android-based gadget sold. (Google gives away the software.)

In a blog post announcing the suit, Microsoft Corporate VP Horacio Gutierrez says:

By bringing this case, we are protecting our investments on behalf of our customers, partners and shareholders – just as other companies do. Our firm view remains, however, that licensing is the best way forward for the industry, and we will continue to prefer the licensing path to litigation.

Microsoft is suing Barnes & Noble on behalf of its customers? Gee thanks. But some customers of Microsoft (and other tech outfits, including Apple, Nokia, HTC, and others) would much rather that the companies spent less time in court squabbling over patents on rather obvious ideas and more time actually making innovative products. (Barnes & Noble, unlike Microsoft and its partners, has succeeded in designing and selling an e-reader that large numbers of people want.)

In Microsoft’s defense, it’s not a lawsuit-crazy company–it says it’s only filed seven “proactive” patent suits in its 36 years in business. But maybe that’s an argument against cases like these, not in favor of them: The company sure seems to have done well over the years without resorting to stuff like this.

Price: $249

The simplest way to describe 2009′s first-generation Nook e-reader was to say it was a lot like an Amazon Kindle. The easiest way to describe the new Nookcolor is that it’s several things that a Kindle is not. This Android-based gizmo has a color touchscreen, giving it a richer interface and the ability to handle magazines and kids’ books much better than the Kindle. And the backlit screen is perfectly legible in dim lighting which renders the Kindle’s display invisible. (Of course, it also saps the Nook’s battery far more rapidly: The Nook gets eight hours on a charge, while the Kindle can run for weeks.)

The Nookcolor isn’t a full-blown Android tablet–B&N calls it a “reader’s tablet,” and hasn’t given it access to the Android Market app store. But the company is launching a third-party app store of its own early next year. And if it catches on, the Nookcolor could be an intriguing alternative to much pricier Android tablets such as Samsung’s Galaxy Tab.

The Nookcolor isn’t a Kindle killer: I think a lot of E-Ink fans aren’t going to be swayed by the idea of swapping a month of battery life and a glare-free screen for eight hours on a charge, color, and touch. But the Nookcolor has a lot to recommend it (along with a few glitches which I hope B&N will fix shortly–it’s been conscientious about releasing regular updates for the original Nook).

If the Nookcolor is a hit, will Amazon respond with a color-LCD Kindle? You never know, but the most obvious answer is: no, probably not. Last year, Jeff Bezos said a color Kindle was years off; the fact that the Kindle uses E-Ink is a defining aspect of its personality. It’s what makes a Kindle a Kindle, and my guess is that from this point out, e-reader buyers will get to pick from two very different approaches to e-readers. (On the other hand, it wouldn’t be a stunner if other players such as Sony tried LCD.)

While I was mulling over the subject of e-readers I also blogged at Techland on the fact that I do most of my e-reading on devices that aren’t actually e-readers–my iPhone, especially. I called that post “The Best E-Reader May Be No E-Reader at All.”

Instead, developers creating apps for the Nook e-reader will be urged to build “reader-center apps that will blend in seamlessly with our reader’s tablet environment,” she told me.

Actually, apps already up there in the Android Market will operate on the new Nook, anyway. “We’ve tested them. They run well and behave fine,” Romanini acknowledged. But the Nookcolor won’t have the Android Market, and those existing apps for smartphones and other tablets aren’t optimized for the color Nook, which will be running a custom build of the Android 2.1 operating system when its first delivered in B&N stores on or about November 19th.

While B&N won’t really have be an iPhone-like app store, B&N versions of Android apps will be downloadable, and they’ll also show up in an “Extras” folder on the Nookcolor. The first rendition of the color reader tablet will come bundled with Extras that include chess, crossword puzzles, Soduku, and a Pandora digital music player for Internet radio.

Later on, though, Nookcolor users will start coming across more Android apps when they’re downloading books, magazines, and newspapers from B&N’s online bookstore.

Romanini sketched out what she called a “one-click process” involving a recommendation engine. She gave a few hypothetical examples as to how the scenario might unfold. For a travel book, the recommendation engine might tip you off to a foreign language phrase app, or a video travelogue about a travel spot, for instance.

Alternatively, for a cookbook about Indian cuisine, the engine might suggest an encyclopedia of Indian spices, or a cooking conversion chart to help you switch the amounts of ingredients to the right proportions.

Romanini admitted that some of these tools–such as cooking conversion charts — are also accessible on the Web through search engines like Google. But, she contended, leaving B&N’s book content behind to enter a Web search environment would interrupt the reading experience.

At least for the foreseeable future, the Nookcolor will be a “reader’s tablet,” rather than a “multifunctional everything” along the lines of Samsung’s new Galaxy Tab, she said.

“For our applications, we’re focused on the reading experience, in particular. There are lots of types of content that might interest readers. But [users] might not want to bother to understand what Android is, and they shouldn’t have to do so. We don’t want to have to explain to them what an application is, either, [although it’s just] another type of content,” she told me.

B&N hasn’t yet fleshed out all the details around its plans for working with developers. Yet just as with the apps  included in Google’s Android Market, developers will be able to charge users for apps. They’ll also be permitted to offer apps free of charge, monetizing through “standard methods” such as paid advertising.

B&N is now actively seeking out third-party content and application developers, and the book seller certainly doesn’t want to discourage any development activity. “But the kinds of applications we’re looking for need to be reader-centric, and they need to be well deployed. There are some apps that will be more relevant. We hope that developers will spend some time thinking about what the relevant ones will be, and that they’ll see this as an opportunity,” she said.

For instance, location-based apps won’t make much sense, since the Nookcolor is enabled for W-iFi only, not 3G, according to Romanini.

Instead, B&N is seeking apps that either “enrich book content by helping readers get more out of their books, extend book content by helping readers to further explore their interests,” or “expand beyond reading’ with games, puzzles, and other things to do when taking a break from reading.

“I think the possibilities for engaging, casual games and other ‘snackable companions’ are really kind of infinite,” she predicted. Beyond displaying “deep, rich content,” the color Nook will also be an environment for “building synergies” between books and other merchandise, including software apps.

Whether or not B&N will “curate” the apps depends on what definition of “curate” you’re using. “But there will be a process for making sure [an application] is appropriate for the [B&N] bookstore,” I was told.

Barnes and Noble has already put up a Web portal for developers. Interested developers can sign up there now. Within the next few weeks, B&N plans to post a software developers kit (SDK) and other tools, including documentation, developer guidelines, “hints and tips,” and an emulator that will demo how existing Android apps will run on the Nookcolor.

Tweaking an app for the color Nook platform won’t be all that tough for a developer, according to Romanini. “I want to emphasize that this won’t be a port, [and that] developers won’t need to start all over again,” she maintained.

She described B&N’s Nookcolor SDK as an add-on which will run on top of the Android SDK from Google, which is used by developers to build Android mobile apps for smartphones and tablet PCs. B&N’s SDK add-on will “optimize navigation and the UI (user interface)” for the color Nook.

But while the Nookcolor will be available in time for this year’s holiday shopping season, the same won’t hold true for the first crop of downloadable B&N-flavored Android apps. B&N expects that developers will begin submitting their software applications early in 2011, according to Romanini.

Along with Nookcolor, B&N also unveiled a new library of children’s books called Nook Kids, plus the bookseller’s first application development program for Android.

Underneath its full-color covers, the Nookcolor is outfitted with an OMAP system-on-a-chip (SoC) processor from Texas Instuments, based on an ARM Cortex A9 processor. The e-reader runs a custom build of Android 2.1. “When we first started working on a color Nook, Android 2.1 wasn’t available yet,” explained Jamie Iannone, a B&N executive VP, speaking with me at the launch. The Android 2.2 upgrade will include the addition of Adobe Flash, too.

B&N only had a few working Nookcolors on hand at the rollout, and members of the press weren’t allowed to play around with the gadgets. Instead, product mangers conducted one-on-one and group demos. Measuring 8.1-by-5-by-.048 inches, the new reader is slightly larger than an ordinary paperback book.

Wendy Bronfin, one of the product managers, told me that over a hundred magazines have already signed on for the new magazine library, lured by the ability to show publications in color. Examples include Rolling Store, Esquire, and National Geographic. Displaying more than 16 million colors, the touch display also offers a wide viewing angle, supporting the ability for two or more people to look at the screen at the same time.

Publishers can also choose to run videos with their magazines, but only in small windows rather than at full screen, Bronfin said. Through a feature called ArticleView, users can go directly to whatever articles they choose directly from a table of contents, instead of having to search around for the story.

I also caught some glimpses of Nook Kids. In one cool feature, Nookcolor will read a story out loud, which seems like a great advantage for tired parents. Branton admitted, though, that although it’s “fairly rugged,” the Nookcolor hasn’t been child-proofed. “It’s not a children’s toy. It’s more of a family type of device,” she told me.

Nookcolor also contains lots of new social networking features which work with Facebook and Twitter. Some are based on the Nook’s previously introduced “lend” feature, which lets users share e-books from their libraries with selected friends for periods of up to two weeks.

Now, with the Nookcolor, you can now ask to “borrow” a book from a friend’s library. You can also make comments about a book, and you can share favorite quotations from books with other people.

Nookcolor is also highly “personalizable,” said B&N CEO William Lynch, in a talk at the launch. Branton demo’d for me how you can choose from between white, grey, and “night” backgrounds. You can also use other backgrounds, such as personal photos, according to Lynch.

Features also announced at the launch, but not yet seen (or heard) by me, include Internet radio by Pandora, crossword puzzles and other games, and book recommendations from experts, to name a few.

As described by officials tonight, the new Nook app development program, will be somewhat akin to Google’s Android Market or Apple’s App Store. Developers will submit their Android apps. B&N will then decide which ones to use, and manage the appropriate tweaking. At this time, anyway, users will not be able to run standard Android apps on Nookcolor devices, according to Iannone, who is B&N’s executive VP for shopping and digital.

B&N is actually planning not just one, but two software upgrades over the next few months, Iannone told me. Prior to the Android 2.2 and Flash upgrade in 2011, B&N will provide a smaller upgrade some time in November, with enhancements that will include “easier page turning.”

Although B&N also produces a 3G e-ink Nook, the new color Nook is WiFi-only. But B&N isn’t ruling out the release at some point of a color Nook with mobile broadband, Lynch said during a press Q&A at the launch.

Users will be willing to pay $249 for the “premium” features in Nookcolor, and B&N won’t budge from that pricetag “any time soon,” Lynch contended.  Over the past year, products in the highly competitive e-reader market have kept tumbling down, especially since the introduction of Apple’s iPad in May.

Lynch also predicted that Nookcolor won’t “cannibalize” either B&N’s earlier b&w e-ink Nooks or B&N’s sales of physical books in brick-and-mortar stores. B&N doesn’t plan on dropping the b&w readers, since studies by Forrester Market show that a certain market segment will continue to prefer e-ink, he said.

Lynch also told journalists that the co-existence of the Nook with B&N’s stores is actually financially advantageous on both sides. The CEO noted that B&N has already put up Nookcolor displays in its stores, and that consumers will be able to come in to stores to try before buying when devices become available over the next few weeks. Shipment is slated happen “on or about November 19.”

On my way out the door of the B&N store in Union Square, the site of the launch, I stopped by the new Nookcolor display on the ground floor. Not surprisingly, curious shoppers were already checking out the e-reader mock-ups in the retail outlet’s Nookcolor display area.