DisplayĪmazon made a big fuss about the display in the Fire HD. Winner: Nook HD, which comes in a stunningly white bright and a classy black, and actually looks like a tablet, not a kids toy from the back. The Nook HD certainly hits that benchmark. The Fire looks just like last year’s bloated model, which was very clean but also very rubbery and not really a tablet tablet. Then again, ask how people like white iPhones, and you’ll get an earful clearly white is in. Still, the two paint jobs look pretty dashing, even if white is a bit loud for my tastes. Meanwhile the Nook HD comes in two colors, white and smoke, which is apparently the cool new way to say black. And don’t forget it only comes in one color. Amazon’s heavily doctored pictures make the Kindle look like it has no bezel and is all screen. Who doesn’t like showing off their new toys? If you’re just basing it off of photos released by the two companies, you’re making a mistake. It’s almost unfair to compare these two tablets when it comes to looks…but let’s do it anyways. Winner: Nook HD, which is much lighter, even though it’s slightly thicker. But with 2.5oz of extra tablet in the Fire, B&N wins this bout. Without the weight, the differences between the Fire HD and Nook HD would be moot. So I guess that makes it kind of like that kid everyone thought was skinny, but when he took off his shirt you realized just how fat he really was. The Nook HD is significantly lighter at 315g, compared to 395g of the thinner Fire HD. Then again, when I held the Kindle Fire HD, it didn’t feel too thin. For a tablet, that’s not so bad most people need a little more girth on larger devices to grip them properly, so there is such thing as too thin. The main difference is that the Nook HD isn’t as wide but it’s almost an inch thicker. The Nook HD is 194mm x 127mm x 11mm, compared to 193mm x 137mm x 10.3mm. Size-wise, the two devices are nearly identical. Or, if you want to throw an iPad into the mix, take a look at our Kindle Fire vs iPad 2 review too. Who will win out, the online retailing giant Amazon with the Kindle Fire, or national bookstore Barnes & Noble with the Nook HD? Let’s find out. The Nexus 7 has won over many a heart and mind, but with very limited space and no expandable memory, as well as a mediocre display, that won’t last forever. So far, that space isn’t such a big deal to fill. Two HD tablet/e-reader devices, from two companies that started out in hardware for the sole purpose of selling e-books, and just a few short years later they’re here contending for the best 7″ tablet.