I had the nook tablet (8gb) for one day and then returned it.
Here are my impressions:
Things I like about the Nook:
Screen: colors are nice
Weight: about half the weight as the ipad2. Can be held with one hand
Performance: The UI was fairly snappy even with the limited ram.
Memory card slot - up to 32gb micro sd
Hardware volume and home buttons
Supports ePub format natively.
Things I did not like:
Browser: really slow rendering pages compared to ipad even with flash turned off. There is a terrible stuttering lag when scrolling within the browser.
Font rendering for books: This was the deal killer for me. Something with the Nook's font rendering is a bit off. Fonts do not appear crisp to the eye making reading on this device a real chore.
The App Store: App selection in the B&N store is really limited compared to the IOS app store and even the kindle app store. The good apps that do exist cost on average 2 to 3 times as much as thier ios counterparts. This wouldn't be a big deal if the amazon app store or other apks could be side loaded onto the nook. But this is not possible with the firmware (1.42) that is preloaded on the nook tablet.
I only played with the kindle fire for a limited time. Based on the short time of the device, here are my impressions :
Things I like about the fire:
The UI is nicer and is easier to navigate.
The browser seems to render a little bit faster and the scroll lag is not as bad.
Font rendering for books seemed be be a little smoother to me.
App store has a better selection of quality apps. And they are cheaper.
Things that bother me about the fire:
No home and volume hardware buttons:
8 gb storage is very limited
No sd card slot
Does not support ePub.
So If I had to choose between these two, I would get the fire.
But in reality I will probably save up and get an iPad 3.
