Barnes & Noble, Inc. (BKS), Google Inc (GOOG): What’s Next?

The second most important factor in choosing a tablet is a tie between display and battery life. Consumers don’t want to think about plugging the device in all the time, and they want a great display. Look at a comparison of the Nook versus their competition and you’ll see how this race just got very interesting:

As you can see, while the Apple iPad Mini has neither the best resolution, nor the best price, but it is the lightest, and has arguably the best brand behind it. There is a reason Apple sold 65% more iPads on a year-over-year basis. The eco-system is second to none, and apparently many customers wanted an iPad in a smaller form factor.

That being said, the lead that the Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS)’s Nook HD has is fairly clear. At the same price, customers get a screen that has between 12.5% and 49.08% more pixels per square inch. They also get a device that is the second lightest by just a hair, and now they get 700,000 apps to choose from instead of 10,000 like before.

What’s next?

The bottom line is, Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS) now has arguably the best small form tablet on the market, and the comparison is favorable when looking at their larger Nook HD+ as well. It’s interesting, because it seems like Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Barnes & Noble just fired a shot across Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s bow that it didn’t see coming. It’s one thing for Amazon to out-duel Barnes & Noble, when the Nook had just 10,000 apps. Now that the Nook is an honest to goodness Android tablet, we’ll see how this competition plays out.

At the very least, Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS) just made their Nook subsidiary a more attractive takeover target for a competitor. Imagine what a Google owned Barnes & Noble could do.

The article Did This Company Just Surprise Everyone? originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Chad Henage.

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