Discussion on:

Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet teardown: Upgraded, improved Nook Color

As our Nook Tablet teardown shows, the Nook and Kindle Fire share several hardware components. The Nook does have twice as much RAM and twice as much storage, but beyond that their incredibly similar devices. And while the Nook costs $50 more, I doubt that's enough of a difference to push consumers away from the Nook.

Rather than hardware or price, I believe most people will pick the Nook or Fire based on the device's ecosystem. Regular Amazon shoppers, who already buy books, music, and everything else from the online retail giant, are more inclined to stick with the Fire. Barnes & Noble fans, who frequent the retailers physical stores and already have a library of Nook content, may be more likely to stick with the Nook.

What do you think? Which tablet has the better ecosystem--the Nook Tablet or Kindle Fire?

The Nook products are the most hackable around. But as a hacker/maker I doubt that we represent more than 1/2 % of the reader/tablet market. I think that the deal breaker/maker with the Kindle is the $79/yr Prime fee. I do not think that the "one free book" per month will contain the top titles. Having a Prime account already this will not be an additional expense for me.

I recommend the Kindle tablet plus Prime to the reader/browser/e-mail/video/music crowd and the Nook tablet for the limited market that needs more power/non-vendor apps/side loading/customization.

I love my Nook Color Gen 1 as an ereader/browser and will upgrade it to the 1.4 software. I will purchase a Kindle tablet over the Black Friday/Cyber Monday period from whomever offers the best swag.