Hasta La Gadget!

Amazon has apparently dropped the price of its Kindle Fire HD ereader-tablet in what appears to be a response to Barnes & Noble’s NOOK HD cuts, dropping the 7-inch Android-based slate by as much as 15-percent in the US and UK. The price adjustment sees the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD come down to £139 in the UK (saving £20) for the 16GB model, and to $169 (saving $30) in the US, compared to the latest 7-inch NOOK HD at £129/$149 for the 16GB model.

In the US, Amazon lists the Kindle Fire HD change as a “limited time” offer, though it’s worth noting that B&N has used the same nomenclature for its own discounting. Our suspicion is that the cuts will last for roughly as long as the other company’s do, given the fierce competition between the two firms.

Despite Amazon’s changes, the NOOK HD is still the cheaper of the two. For a start, B&N offers an 8GB version, which is $129, and has no direct capacity equivalent in the Kindle Fire HD range. However, B&N’s motivations are very different to Amazon’s as well: the company admitted last month that it planned to clear its stock of existing NOOK HD/HD+ models and then in future license the brand to third-party tablet manufacturers, rather than make its own models.

Instead, B&N would focus solely on developing e-paper based ereaders, such as the SimpleTouch. NOOK sales overall in Q2 – including ereader hardware, software, and accessories – dropped 34-percent, with the company blaming a shortage of high-profile titles as well as waning hardware appeal.

It’s not the first time Amazon has shuffled Kindle pricing to ramp up pressure on B&N. Back in 2009 the retailer cut the second-gen Kindle after its rival launched the NOOK, on the assumption that ongoing content sales would offset any narrowing of hardware margins.

VIA Paul O’Brien

Amazon cuts Kindle Fire HD to ramp B&N NOOK HD pressure is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Barnes & Noble saw NOOK sales plummet 34-percent in the last quarter, and will turn instead to licensing the NOOK brand to future ereading tablets so as to minimize its losses, the company has confirmed. B&N will continue to make the NOOK Simple Touch and Glowlight models in-house, but the eventual replacements to the NOOK

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NOOK Media has just announced that they will be expanding their extensive catalog of reading and entertainment content by throwing in the hugely popular Google Play digital content experience. The receiving devices would be none other than their acclaimed NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ tablets, where the presence of Google Play being built into the NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ would enable customers to gain access to over 700,000 Android apps and games, more songs than you can ever listen to in your entire lifetime, and of course, who can forget the extremely speedy Chrome browser and other popular Google apps?

Both the NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ tablets were specially designed to deliver the very best reading and entertainment experience, where the NOOK HD display certainly flies the flag for the 7” tablet market very well, while the NOOK HD+’s display can certainly hold its own against the iPad 3’s display – or at least, that is what Barnes & Noble claims.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Adobe Shows Off Lightroom-like App Running On A Tablet, AT&T Galaxy Note Gets Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean As Well,

Starting this week, Barnes & Noble NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ devices will be receiving access to the official Google Play app and digital content store straight from the source. Where since the birth of the NOOK line of ereaders, each Android-based device worked specifically and only with the Barnes & Noble Shop for books and movies, users will now have the ability to access both Google apps and Google Music. There’s only one catch – if you’d call it a catch, that is.

The way a user accesses the Google Play digital content store from their NOOK HD or NOOK HD+ device is through a notification which will be appearing on their device starting this week. This notification will have an opt-in option which downloads the Google Play store. With this download comes the full collection of Google services such as Gmail, YouTube, Google+, Google Search, Chrome browser, and Google Maps.

These apps come instantly when you download Google Play, each of them a requirement if you’d like to work with Google Play. Other than these additions, the NOOK experience remains entirely the same. Once you’ve downloaded Google Play and these apps all at once, the first time you tap any of them you’ll be asked to either create or log in to your Google account.

The NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ are the first two devices to be working with Google Play and will likely not be the last. This is the start of a relationship between Barnes & Noble and Google that we’re expecting will send ripples through the ereader industry – or at least send a shock over to Amazon. Have a peek at the NOOK timeline below to see events leading up to this release and let us know if this addition will be pushing you into the NOOK universe.

NOOK HD gains access to Google Play, apps required is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Barnes & Noble has slashed the prices of its entire NOOK ereader range in the UK, including making its NOOK Simple Touch just £29 ($45), as part of what the company says is a temporary promotion. The discounting, which comes alongside a UK literacy push, means the Simple Touch is now the cheapest ereader on the UK market, B&N claims; its backlit NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight sibling is also reduced.

If you want easier bedtime reading, the backlit model is down from £109 to £69 ($107). The system works well in our experience; our review is here.

Meanwhile, Barnes & Noble’s tablet-ereaders are also discounted. The NOOK HD is priced from £129 ($200), down from £159, for instance – you can find our review of it here – while the NOOK HD+ is priced from £179 ($278), cutting £50 from the previous price.

Multiple retailers should be offering the new prices, though we’re already seeing some stock wobbles in some online stores. Exactly how long the promotion will last is unclear, and whether it will be followed up with an all-new range is questionable.

B&N slashes NOOK in UK: Promo or firesale? is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.