Barnes & Noble’s affordable Nook HD and HD+ tablets are now available in the UK, almost a month after both devices went on pre-order in the country. The Nook HD is priced at £159 with 8GB storage or £189 for 16GB, while the HD+ is priced at £229 for 16GB and £269 for 32GB storage.

The Nook HD 7″ sports the highest pixel density of any 7-inch tablet at a resolution of 1440×900 pixels, and sports a 1.3GHz dual-core TI OMAP4470 processor, 1GB RAM, Wi-Fi connectivity, microSD storage expansion, dual stereo speakers enhanced with SRS TruMedia audio, and a 4,050 mAh battery that provides up to 10.5 hours of reading time or 9 hours of HD video playback.

The Nook HD+ on the other hand differentiates itself from the Nook HD with a 9″ Full HD (1920 x 1280 pixels) display, 1.5GHz OMAP4470 processor, and a larger 6,000 mAh battery (up to 10 hours video playback and 9 hours reading time). Both devices run on the company’s customized version of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Both tablets are now available at stores such as Argos, Sainsbury’s and John Lewis at the aforementioned prices. Check out the full press release below.

Barnes & Noble NOOK® HD and NOOK® HD+ Now on Sale in the UK

NOOK HD, Ultra-Light, Highest-Resolution* 7-Inch HD Tablet, and
NOOK HD+, Lightest and Lowest Priced Full HD 9-Inch** Tablet
Now Available in the United Kingdom

In-Store at High Street Retailers and Online at http://www.nook.co.uk

Starting at Just £159 for NOOK HD and £229 for NOOK HD+ with No Ads

London, United Kingdom – November 22, 2012 – NOOK Media LLC, a subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, announced today that NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ are now available to purchase in the UK. NOOK HD features the highest resolution 7-inch display and the 9-inch NOOK HD+ is more than 20 percent lighter and nearly half the cost of the leading full-size tablet.

Customers across the UK will now be able to experience this first-hand in top high street retailers, and the tablets will start arriving throughout the week to customers who pre-ordered the devices online. The tablets are arriving on shelves in John Lewis, Argos, Asda, Dixons, Sainsbury, Waitrose, Blackwell’s and Foyles and they are also available to purchase through http://www.nook.co.uk.

Both tablets feature must-see displays for superior reading and entertainment and NOOK Profiles™, a unique feature that creates an instantly personalised tablet experience for each family member. Both NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ offer access to the NOOK Store’s 2.5 million books; a large selection of magazines and apps; and NOOK Video™, a broad collection of popular films and TV shows available for purchase or rental, which will be launched early December.

Jamie Iannone, President of NOOK Media, said: “Our new tablets offer the best quality reading and entertainment experiences, at the best price. With the highest resolution 7-inch display available in the UK, every book read, every movie watched, every game played is rendered in a digital quality unmatched by other tablets. Pre-orders have exceeded our expectations and we look forward to UK customers being able to experience these stunning new tablets.”

With an unmatched high-definition 7-inch display, reading and entertainment content looks better than ever, and is easily portable as the NOOK HD is extremely light. At only 315g and just 5-inches (127mm) wide, it fits beautifully in the hand and is more than 20 percent lighter and a centimeter narrower than Kindle Fire HD. Its dual-core 1.3GHz high-speed processor makes it highly responsive, smooth and faster than Kindle Fire HD for a nimble overall experience that is 80 percent faster when it comes to graphics processing for smoother, faster animations, renderings, apps experience and more. This exceptional 7-inch tablet is available in two colours: ‘Snow’ and ‘Smoke.’ Starting at just £159 for an 8GB model and only £189 for a 16GB version, both feature expandable microSD memory storage and extra-long battery life.

For those who want to enjoy reading and entertainment on a larger scale, NOOK HD+ offers a full HD 9-inch display for up to 1080p for movies, magazines and more. The fully-laminated display reduces glare and provides excellent viewing angles – perfect for personal or shared viewing. At only 515g, NOOK HD+ is the lightest full HD 9-inch ** tablet ever invented. It is power-packed by a 1.5GHz dual-core processor for a fast, smooth customer experience, whether web browsing; reading books and magazines; watching videos; using apps or checking email. Offered in the colour ‘Slate,’ it has great battery life and expandable memory for even more storage. NOOK HD+ is available for 16GB for £229 and 32GB for £269, two amazing prices for a brilliant, super-light 9-inch full HD tablet.

Both NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ offer a range of new features in addition to access to an expansive collection of content:

NOOK Profiles: A personalised experience that instantly transforms the device into any family member’s very own tablet. Adults can use personal passwords to easily protect and access their books, magazines, videos, apps and their personal email accounts, while their children can dive into digital picture books, educational apps and kid-friendly videos.
NOOK Newsstand™: An expansive collection of magazines and newspapers available by subscription and single copies. The NOOK Magazine experience adds a visual table of contents to view thumbnails of the entire magazine and super-fast, 3D-like page turns. ArticleView™ lets the reader focus only on the text, customised to their needs, and NOOK Scrapbook™ allows readers to virtually clip pages of interest and save them in customised digital scrapbooks.
NOOK Apps™: Customers will find all the most popular and bestselling top 100 app titles including Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Fruit Ninja, Words with Friends and many more, all optimised for the stunning displays. The NOOK Store provides helpful age recommendations for parents, can be browsed by subject area, and has the broadest and the most curated app collection of children’s educational apps on any Android store.
NOOK Channels™: A new shopping experience that allows customers to easily shop by department or explore Channels based on personal interest to discover great new content.
NOOK Books™: In one of the world’s largest digital bookstores, find more than 2.5 million books, including interactive children’s picture books; comic books and graphic novels; picture-perfect art, photography, travel guides; and cookbook titles.
Other Must-have Tablet Features:
Top-end processors make the newly-designed browser fast, simple and smooth to surf favourite sites with a tap, pinch and zoom.
A built-in email app offers new features in an easy-to-use, clean format that supports a host of popular personal and work-related email services including Microsoft® Exchange ActiveSync.
UK residents wishing to learn more about NOOK can visit http://www.nook.co.uk, as well as Facebook.com/nook and Twitter.com/nook_uk.

Barnes & Noble conducts its commercial European operations through its Luxembourg entity Barnes & Noble S.à r.l.

*NOOK HD contains 243 pixels per square inch. The greater number of pixels per square inch means a substantially higher screen quality.

**NOOK HD+ weighs 515 grams and has a resolution of 256 ppi. Full HD (or Full High Definition) provides a resolution that is higher quality than that of HD (or High Definition) and substantially higher quality than that of SD (or standard definition).

Via: Engadget