Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet: How the specs compare

Seven-inch tablets are finding new life with the launch of the Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet. Before the arrival of these two devices, smaller tablets either cost more than $300 or had serious limitations, such as an unsuitable display.

Our labs are now testing both of the new tablets. When the tests are completed, we'll present a comparison based on the results. In the meantime, here's how the specifications of these two new tablets compare (see our table below), alongside two competing devices, the new Samsung Galaxy Tab Plus 7.0 and the Kobo Vox, whose manufacturer calls it an e-book reader, but which has tablet-like features.

Storage. With 8GB, the Kindle Fire has the least storage and no memory-card reader to expand it. The others have 16GB and can add more with MicroSD cards. Depending on how you plan to use the Fire, however, that may not be an issue, since you'll be able to store all of your Amazon content, along with up to 5GB of other content, free on Amazon's cloud service.

Display. All have capacitive 7-inch displays and 1024 x 600 resolution. In our tests, we've found this type of display to be more responsive than resistive ones. The Fire has anti-reflective treatment, while the others have anti-glare. We await our test results to see what difference, if any, that makes.

App store. Only the Samsung Galaxy Tab can download apps from the full Android Market. The others access curated app stores, where the tablet maker chooses a limited number of apps specifically for each device. So far, the Kobo Vox has the most such apps, with 15,000, but Amazon and Barnes & Noble are adding more apps to their stores daily.

Battery life. Amazon says the Kindle Fire will get up to 8 hours of reading time or 7.5 hours of video viewing, with wireless turned off. Barnes & Noble says the Nook Tablet will last 11.5 hours for reading and 9 hours for watching videos. Claimed battery life for the Kobo Vox is 7 hours. Samsung's website makes no claims on battery life.

Connectivity. Each has a USB 2.0 port except the Galaxy Tab. Only the Galaxy Tab has Bluetooth. The Galaxy Tab is also the only model of the four available in a 3G-capable version.

Cameras. Only the Galaxy Tab has a built-in camera. In fact it has two: a 2.0-megapixel front-mounted camera for videoconferencing and a 3-megapixel camera on the rear.

We plan to have the Nook Tablet in our labs for testing shortly and to have a comparison of the Nook and Kindle Fire here within a week. And check our Ratings of tablet computers (available to subscribers) for full test results soon.

—Donna L. Tapellini