The plastic bezel around the 7-inch display is wider than it needs to be so that users have a place to rest their thumb that isn’t the screen. The stylized n button remains in place just below the screen. The raised power button and volume toggle are easy to find by touch and in the same position as on the Nook Tablet. The soft-touch back has a grip-friendly contour just like the Nook Simple Touch e-reader, so it’s more comfortable in the hand and not likely to slip. The result is a lighter, more holdable tablet. But even with all that, is it a more compelling tablet than what Google offers? Look and Feelīarnes & Noble dropped the distinctive design seen on the Nook Tablet and Nook Color and started from scratch for the Nook HD. Coming in at $200 for the 8GB version and $230 for the 16GB, the HD has plenty going for it: a higher resolution display than the competition, an attractive, easy-to-use interface, an exceptional reading experience, and now more multimedia content. B&N continues to make tablets for people who love to read, and the Nook HD is a great example of that. That begs the question: why would anyone buy a Nook when the Nexus 7 has more features? And now you can find not-so paired down tablets at the same low price. Other companies followed suit, starting with Amazon. They called it a “Reader’s Tablet” and made clear that they weren’t trying to compete with the Apples and Samsungs of the world. Fitbit Versa 3īack when Barnes & Noble released the Nook Color, the company created a new category of Android tablet: a low-cost, paired down device with a focus on a certain kind of user.

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