Nook Dual-core Tablet with Android costs 249USD

Barnes and Noble has just announced an upgraded version of the widely popular Nook Color. Unassumingly called the Nook Tablet, it uses the same 7-inch VividView IPS LCD screen with 1024x600 pixels resolution. It has nearly 180 degrees viewing angles and is fully laminated for minimal reflections and glares.

The Nook Tablet uses the Nook Color body, but has a completely different core a TI OMAP 4430 chipset with a 1GHz dual-core ARM Cortex A9 processor, a PowerVR SGX540 GPU and 1GB RAM. The internal storage is 16GB, expandable via microSD card slot. The new hardware means that HD video playback is easily possible with the Nook tablet.

Barnes&Noble Tablet runs on a highly customized version of Android v2.3 Gingerbread and comes with Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora, etc. integration. The Nook Tablet will compete directly with the Amazon Kindle Fire and costs 249 US. Barnes&Noble is already taking pre-orders, while the first units will hit the retail stores at November 18.