A fantastic tablet value
The good: The Barnes & Noble Nook HD+ starts at only $269, has a sharp screen, good performance, and a microSD slot. It's also lightweight, comfortable, and implements magazines and catalogs better than any other tablet.
The bad: The
Nook store still lacks some popular TV shows and movies, there's no
native music feature, and apps support pales in comparison to the
competition. Screen quality is susceptible to fingerprints.
The bottom line: Though lacking in media options, the Nook HD+ is a low-price, quality entry point into the world of tablets.
At only $269, the Nook HD+ is a great value. It's a 9-inch tablet
with a high-resolution screen, and implements magazines and catalogs
better than any tablet before it. It also includes a microSD slot and is
lightweight; however, it doesn't feel as durable as its 7-inch sibling,
the Nook HD.
The
Nook HD+ doesn't have access to tons of apps and media content, so if
that's what you're looking for, you’ll want to look at the iPad, Nexus 10, and especially the Kindle Fire HD 8.9.
That isn't to say that the Nook HD+'s store doesn't include a decent
assortment of video. It does, but many popular shows and movies are
missing. Also, there's no native music solution, which is a feature the
other major tablets do support. The Nook HD+ does come preloaded with
both Spotify and Pandora, however.
Those looking for a tablet to
simply load their own content onto will find the HD+'s low price and
expandable storage extremely appealing. However, for a less limited
media and apps experience, there are viable, albeit more expensive,
tablet alternatives.
The Nook HD+ features a medium gray (slate) body with a smooth plastic
back. Sitting alone toward the top of the right edge is a power/sleep
button and right above it, on the top edge is a volume rocker, headphone
jack, and microphone pinhole. On the bottom edge are a custom 30-pin
charging connector and a microSD card slot covered with a door. The
tablet includes a 30-pin-to-USB cable that plugs into the included AC
adapter. Dual speakers sit nestled on the lower back, under a single
speaker grill.
On the front, right above the bottom bezel, is
the hardware home button. Like on the iPad, the home button is a great
"just press this if things get confusing" solution for the ever-evolving
tablet interface. Unfortunately, there's no built-in camera, no ambient
light sensor, no Micro-USB, and no HDMI port. Barnes & Noble is
planning to release a $36 HDMI adapter on December 1, however.
| Barnes & Noble Nook HD+ | Apple iPad (fourth-gen) | Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 | Google Nexus 10 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight in pounds | 1.13 | 1.44 | 1.25 | 1.32 |
| Width in inches (landscape) | 9.5 | 7.3 | 6.4 | 10.4 |
| Height in inches | 6.4 | 9.5 | 9.4 | 6.9 |
| Depth in inches | 0.45 | 0.37 | 0.35 | 0.35 |
| Side bezel width in inches (landscape) | 0.63 | 0.87 | 1 | 0.9 |
The Nook HD+'s corners are smoothly rounded and at only 1.19 pounds,
it's the lightest large tablet available and feels almost perfectly
comfortable when held. Just not quite as perfect as the smaller, lighter
7-inch Nook HD does.
Even with its light weight, the Nook HD+'s
build feels solid and fairly durable; however, it lacks the rubberized
feel of the 7-inch Nook HD and therefore probably can't take as much
punishment. Also, applying enough pressure to the back or along the left
or right bezel yields a visible screen-warping effect on the display.
Now, screen warping occurs to some extent on nearly every tablet;
however, if you're just holding the Nook HD+ while reading a book or
watching a movie, you'll likely have no cause to apply enough pressure
to it for this to be a problem.
The Nook HD+'s operating system uses Ice Cream Sandwich as its base,
with a custom-designed skin that feels like an evolution of the original
Nook Tablet's OS. The home screen sports a light gray, slightly
textured aesthetic that permeates through all native apps and menus. The
home screen shows Library, Apps, Web, Email, and Shop options near the
bottom with a global search bar underneath. Directly above is a space to
organize content shortcut icons, and near the top of the screen sits
your content carousel.
In the top-right edge of the screen is
Your Nook Today, which shows the current weather as well as book and
movie recommendations based on recent additions to your library. Also,
if the opt-out-of-ads kerfuffle for the Fire HD line turned you off, you'll be pleased to know that Barnes & Noble has no such ads on its tablets.
Settings
can be accessed by tapping the gear at the very top right of the screen
and includes options too many to name. If you've ever used a tablet
before, however, there's nothing included in the settings that will
surprise you. The default software keyboard, thankfully, includes a tab.
Typing felt about as accurate as it does on the Kindle Fire HD 8.9, but
not nearly as precise as the Nexus 10 or iPad.
Nook Profiles can be accessed from the upper-left-hand corner and allows
users to set up multiple profiles on a single tablet. With a simple tap
of the profile photo at the top of the screen, you can choose to switch
to a new profile almost instantly. Once in the new profile, that user's
content (and only that user's content) will be displayed and
accessible. Lock-screen switching is also possible. Both adult and child
profiles can be accessed and passwords can be added to adult profiles,
ensuring that not just anyone can access your content. Nook profiles are
simple to implement and feel secure and useful, likely appealing to
families on a budget looking to share a single tablet.
Overall, the interface is much cleaner and intuitive than the
Nook Tablet's; however, I still have a few problems with navigation. As
much as I like the home button, I feel the interface relies on it a bit
too much. If looking at a magazine, for example, there's no built-in
navigation to view all magazines in your library or a back button to
return to where you first launched the magazine. Instead, you're forced
to use the home button or the recent apps software button to access
another piece of content if you want to switch. Not a huge deal, but
it's annoying in the moment.
Content ecosystem
Not to be outdone by Amazon and its Instant Video service, Barnes &
Noble now has its own for the Nook HD and Nook HD+. Nook Video offers
both standard-definition and high-definition versions of video content
for purchase or rental, with HD video streaming supported as well.
Unfortunately, its current library comes nowhere near Amazon's or
Google's in terms of selection. If you're looking for lots of recent,
popular movies, you won't find them here. Well, you'll find some, like
"The Avengers," "Brave," and "Prometheus," but "Total Recall," "The
Hunger Games," and "The Expendables 2" are nowhere to be found. Since
its launch a few weeks back, the selection of movies available on the
service has definitely improved, with new, popular titles being added
every week. There's still lots of room to fill things out however. TV
shows have also begun to fill out, albiet at a seemingly slower rate.
The Nook HD+'s video interface could also use some
improvements. When downloading a movie on the Kindle Fires, you can
start watching it just a few seconds after the download begins. While
you can start previewing videos early on the Nook HD+, you have to wait
until the download is at least 20 percent completed to do so; a much
longer wait than the Kindle Fires require. Other useful Fire features,
like the skip-back 10 seconds button and X-Ray for movies, are options
Barnes & Noble currently can't match, and while they're not
essential to the experience, they can enhance it.
f you have an Ultraviolet account, any movies added to your digital UltraViolet library will show up in your Nook HD+ library as well. A Netflix app is also available, but there are no plans to bring HBO Go just yet. The tablet supports MP4, 3GP, WEBM, and AVI video files, but try as I might, MKV files would not play.
The Nook Web browser has been redesigned and now includes a useful page search feature and the capability to save actual pages on the storage drive. ArticleView gives you a formatted text version of Web pages and magazines for easier reading. Speaking of magazines, they get a noticeable face-lift here as well, with a smooth page-turning effect and the option to easily cut any page and include it in a virtual scrapbook. So, depending on your magazine(s) of choice, you could easily make a workout or recipes scrapbook, which is a lot less cumbersome than taking screenshots. Unfortunately, your clippings are only stored locally and (probably thanks to copyright laws) there's no way to share them online. You can, however, share them with other profiles on your Nook HD+.
App selection on the Nook Store pales in comparison to the Google Play store and fails to offer as deep a selection as Amazon currently does with its Kindle Fire line. If you're just here for books and magazines, this won't matter much to you, but those looking for a deep app reservoir would do well searching elsewhere.
E-mail gets a redesign and now sports a cleaner, simpler interface and support for Microsoft Exchange, with syncing for calendars and contacts as well.
Hardware features
The Nook HD+ houses a 1.5GHz Texas Instruments OMAP 4470 CPU with a PowerVR SGX545 GPU bringing up the rear. It comes in both 16GB and 32GB varieties and its microSD card slot supports up to 64GB cards. The tablet includes 1GB of RAM, has 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi support, and Bluetooth 4.0. There's no gyroscope, compass, or GPS inside the tablet, but there is an accelerometer.
Performance
The Nook HD+ features a 9-inch screen with a 1,920x1,280-pixel resolution. That's a slightly higher resolution than the Kindle Fire HD 8.9's, but when watching movies or playing games, there's not a noticeable difference in clarity.
Both the Nook HD+ and Kindle Fire HD 8.9 deal with glare equally well, and viewing angles on each screen are wide. However, the Nook HD+'s screen is much more susceptible to moisture, so oily fingerprints tend to create a moire effect on the screen, blurring certain assets, especially text. Honestly, it can sometimes ruin the effect having such a high-resolution screen can provide. This is mostly a problem with text, however. Overall, I preferred the Nook HD+'s screen when viewing video, books, and magazines, thanks in large part to the HD+'s more accurate color. On the other hand, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9's glossy screen is much less susceptible to sullying by fingerprints.
| Tested spec | Barnes & Noble Nook HD+ | Apple iPad (fourth gen) | Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 | Google Nexus 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maximum brightness | 496 cd/m2 | 398 cd/m2 | 413 cd/m2 | 368 cd/m2 |
| Maximum black level | 0.48 cd/m2 | 0.49 cd/m2 | 0.45 cd/m2 | 0.44 cd/m2 |
| Maximum contrast ratio | 1,033:1 | 812:1 | 917:1 | 836:1 |
The Nook HD+'s speakers output at a decent volume for movies as well as with music. It's not as full as what comes out of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9's powerful speakers, but it delivered overall good sound nonetheless.
I used Riptide GP to test overall games performance. With the game running at its highest resolution, frame rates were not as high as the smooth 60 frames per second performance I saw on the Nook HD; however, it did match the Kindle Fire HD 8.9. Not surprising, given that the tablets share the same 1.5GHz TI OMAP 4470. Also, the Nook HD obviously has to push more pixels around than its 7-inch brother, which led to its frame rate not holding up as well as it did on the smaller tablet.
It's a shame the app store isn't full of more games that show off the Nook HD+'s capable 3D graphics hardware. Also, as of yet, there's still no known way to sideload apps, but hopefully that changes soon.
Screen rotation is noticeably slower than on the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 and can't compare with how fast the iPad rotates its screen.
Conclusion
The Nook HD+ is a well-built tablet with a sharp screen and a microSD slot. Those looking to take advantage of a huge media library will be disappointed as Barnes & Noble struggles to match the current movie, TV show, and apps support enjoyed by its rivals.
Still, thanks to their unique and effective implementation, magazines and catalogs are done better here than on any other tablet, and the Nook HD+'s book support can easily stand with the best of them. Starting at only $269, the Nook HD+ makes for a fantastic tablet deal.
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