Barnes and Noble launches Nook tablet.

A little competition always serves for a good shake up. Amazon launched its Kindle fire tablet, back in September. The device was an offshoot of the Kindle ebook reader. Now, competing book seller, Barnes and Noble has followed suit and released the Nook tablet. The Nook tablet runs on a 1 GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM. It comes with 16GB of storage and supports expandable memory. The battery will allow 11.5 hour of reading or 9 hours of video viewing. It features a 7-inch screen with Barnes and Noble's VividView display and IPS lamination. The tablet weighs 14.1 oz (approx 399 grams).

In addition, Barnes and Noble have also included apps and media services built in to the tablet. Services pre-loaded onto the tablet include Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, Grooveshark and Rhapsody. Flixster with UltraViolet for newly released TV shows and movies from Warner Bros. will be coming soon. It also comes built in with games for grown ups like Angry Birds Rio and Seasons, Scrabble, Epicurious, My Cast Weather, Taptu, Style.com, Spanish for Dummies, Bejeweled 2, Ms. Pac Man and more. For kids, they've included Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat, Drawing Pad and Pop Up Peter Rabbit.

The Nook tablet's main selling feature, of course is its reading support. It comes with Nook Newstand where users can choose from more than 250 newspapers and full-color, interactive magazines, delivered to Nook Tablet’s Active Shelf on the Home screen, as soon as they become available. They're also including Nook Comics where the world's greatest superheroes will be available via third party. Finally, they have Nook Kids, where, as the name suggests, books for kids are available.

The Nook tablet is available for pre-order now. The tablet costs $249 (approx Rs.12,201) and Barnes and Noble says that pre-orderers will receive their tablets on or around the 17th of November.