Back when booksellers started creating tablets, two devices grabbed consumer attention. The first was the Barnes and Noble Nook followed by the Amazon Kindle Fire. For various reasons, the Fire outsold the Nook, and Barnes and Noble was largely left in the lurch. However, Barnes and Noble hasn’t given up the tablet fight. The popular bookseller is at it again with a new 8GB Nook.

This new Nook will debut towards the end of February and it has been designed to give the Fire a run for its money. If you’re in the market for a new tablet and Amazon hasn’t sold you on the Fire just yet, you might want to wait around to see what Barnes and Noble will be offering – you may just be pleasantly surprised.

Competing With the Fire

Of course, competing with the Fire won’t be easy for any company to do. This isn’t because the Fire is so impressive as a device, but it is because the Fire is backed by Amazon’s vast marketplace. Barnes and Noble just doesn’t have the capacity to offer as many books (and other items of interest) as Amazon does. Thus, Barnes and Noble will have to come up with a different selling angle – an angle that the company might have already figured out.

When Barnes and Noble’s Nook lined up with Amazon’s Fire, consumers went for the device that was less expensive and backed by a better content library. For some reason, Barnes and Noble priced the Nook a good $50 higher than the Fire – a huge mistake (of course, the original Nook was 16GB, which did impact the pricing, but still, a huge mistake). Offering up a more expensive device that didn’t come with as much content just wasn’t in line with consumer thinking at the time.

Pricing Curbed

While Barnes and Noble hasn’t released any pricing data, one can assume that the price of the new 8GB Nook will be much lower than the price of the 16GB Nook. If this is the case (as it should be), Barnes and Noble will have a much better chance of selling the Nook to consumers who haven’t yet bought a Fire. If you happen to be one of those consumers, you might want to take a look at the current Nook for inspiration.

To many, the current Barnes and Noble Nook is a better all-around device than the Fire. Really, it’s Amazon’s content that is king when it comes to the e-reader wars. The Nook itself is a solid device that’s worthy of a closer look (if you haven’t looked already). Needless to say, it will be interesting to see just how expensive the new Nook is when it hits store shelves – better yet, it will be interesting to see how the new Nook compares to the existing Fire. If you buy the new Nook, you won’t have access to Amazon’s content, but you will be able to purchase a comparable device for a lot less (or the pricing equivalent, at least). The 8GB Barnes and Noble Nook is expected to hit store shelves on February 22nd.