David Pierce, The Verge:

Comparisons to Google and Amazon’s devices abounded — the Nook HD’s 1440 x 900 dis­play is higher-resolution than either, and Barnes & Noble claims the dis­play is bet­ter lam­i­nated to the glass as well. The HD+ bumps the res­o­lu­tion up to 1920 x 1080 on its 9-inch screen — reps brought an iPad along for com­par­i­son — and also looks fantastic.

The 7-inch Barnes & Noble Nook HD sports a 1440×900 pixel for­mat result­ing in a res­o­lu­tion of 242.6 ppi. That’s higher than the Google Nexus 7′s and Amazon Kindle Fire HD’s 215.6 ppi. The 9-inch Nook HD+ packs a 1920×1080 pixel for­mat, good for a 244.8 ppi, slightly less than the 254.4-ppi 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD. But the Nook HD+ is priced at US$269, $30 less than the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD, and with­out ads. There is a dif­fer­ence in specs though: The $199 Nook HD comes with 8GB while the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD comes with 16GB. The 16GB Nook HD costs $229. Barnes & Noble has put up a con­ve­nient com­par­i­son page for: Nook HD vs. Kindle Fire HD and Nook HD+ vs. Kindle Fire HD 8.9″. There’s even a Nook HD+ vs. iPad page. The one big knock on the iPad, in terms of the dis­play, is the lack of a fully lam­i­nated display.

Barnes & Noble is boast­ing a “highly advanced” lam­i­nated IPS LCD on the Nook HD and HD+ tablets with no air gap, low glare, and wide view­ing angles. Technical spec­i­fi­ca­tions aside I think the biggest thing going for the new Nooks is in-store sup­port. If Barnes & Noble can pull off the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence found at Apple Stores, a big if, I think the new Nooks have a good chance at grab­bing mar­ket share from Amazon for folks who value the con­ve­nience of going to a local store and face-to-face interactions.

Update 2012.10.30: David Pierce, The Verge:

The 243ppi pixel den­sity means you won’t see any indi­vid­ual pix­els (unless you look REALLY hard), and since it’s lam­i­nated to the glass it almost feels like things on the screen are pop­ping out at you. What impresses me most, though, is the color repro­duc­tion. Blacks are deep to the point that they appear to be not lit at all, mak­ing dark scenes in Sherlock Holmes all the more omi­nous. From skin tones to vivid col­ors, every­thing is accu­rate, crisp, and clean – that’s great for read­ing black text on white back­grounds, and it’s great for watch­ing movies. It’s just a fan­tas­tic display.

Deep blacks, accu­rate col­ors, and the high res­o­lu­tion all work together for a visual treat. I like that. But we’ll have to wait for a defin­i­tive com­par­i­son by Raymond Soneira to see how the dis­play stacks up against the competition.