The way a user accesses the Google Play digital content store from their NOOK HD or NOOK HD+ device is through a notification which will be appearing on their device starting this week. This notification will have an opt-in option which downloads the Google Play store. With this download comes the full collection of Google services such as Gmail, YouTube, Google+, Google Search, Chrome browser, and Google Maps.

These apps come instantly when you download Google Play, each of them a requirement if you’d like to work with Google Play. Other than these additions, the NOOK experience remains entirely the same. Once you’ve downloaded Google Play and these apps all at once, the first time you tap any of them you’ll be asked to either create or log in to your Google account.

The NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ are the first two devices to be working with Google Play and will likely not be the last. This is the start of a relationship between Barnes & Noble and Google that we’re expecting will send ripples through the ereader industry – or at least send a shock over to Amazon. Have a peek at the NOOK timeline below to see events leading up to this release and let us know if this addition will be pushing you into the NOOK universe.

If you want easier bedtime reading, the backlit model is down from £109 to £69 ($107). The system works well in our experience; our review is here.

Meanwhile, Barnes & Noble’s tablet-ereaders are also discounted. The NOOK HD is priced from £129 ($200), down from £159, for instance – you can find our review of it here – while the NOOK HD+ is priced from £179 ($278), cutting £50 from the previous price.

Multiple retailers should be offering the new prices, though we’re already seeing some stock wobbles in some online stores. Exactly how long the promotion will last is unclear, and whether it will be followed up with an all-new range is questionable.

Furthermore, the app will come pre-loaded for new NOOK devices starting today. However, it seems that the app will only work on the NOOK HD, NOOK HD+, NOOK Tablet, and the NOOK Color. For those who already have a NOOK device, you can download the Pinterest app right now, allowing you to resume pinning from on-the-go in no time.

Pinterest joins Facebook and Twitter as one of the handful of apps pre-loaded on NOOK devices. Claudia Romanini, who is the vice president of NOOK apps at Barnes & Noble, says that Pinterest has “long been one of” the company’s most requested apps, so we’re positive that most NOOK users will benefit greatly from the addition of Pinterest.

Barnes & Noble has been trying to get the NOOK series back on track recently, and the company is working slowly to accomplish that. They recently launched the NOOK Press self-publishing platform, as well as the ability for in-app purchases in order to reel in more bacon. The addition of Pinterest might not make great strides with the company, but it could put them in right direction.

At one point, that would have given Barnes & Noble a significant advantage over Amazon, whose online sales strategy meant it lacked a brick & mortar outlet for its Kindle range. However, that changed when the firm began pushing Kindle ereaders and tablets through retail partners; you can pick up a Kindle Fire at Best Buy or Staples, now, for instance.

However Walmart doesn’t offer Kindle products, having cut its ties with Amazon back in September. That should give B&N some extra visibility in-store, something the company desperately needs since its recent financial results have been less than gratifying.

As for whether the NOOKs are worth the money, the HD made our 2012 Holiday Gift Guide for recommended tablets, and you can find our review here.

NBCUniversal, STARZ, and Warner Bros. Entertainment have also got content in the new store, and B&N will offer both streaming and direct-to-device downloads as playback options, depending on your connectivity and preference. Other studio deals are in the pipeline, B&N claims.

NOOK Video is also the first digital provider to support UltraViolet in the UK. Intended to deliver the best of both physical and digital media, UltraViolet makes digital copies of movies available to buyers of select DVD and Blu-ray content.

The NOOK HD and HD+ went on sale in the UK in late November, priced from £159 for the 7-inch HD and from £229 for the 9-inch HD+. NOOK Video is already available for NOOK HD/HD+ users in the US.

That NOOK Video store – which will offer titles for purchase and for rental – will go live in the UK in early December, Barnes & Noble says. Until then, there are 2.5m books to choose from and an unspecified number of magazines and apps.

The NOOK HD, which has a 7-inch display and a 1.3GHz dualcore processor, is priced at £159 for the 8GB version and £189 for the 16GB version. Each is available in white or grey, has a 1440 x 900 resolution display – besting the iPad mini‘s non-Retina resolution - and a microSD card slot for adding more storage.

As for the NOOK HD+, that has a Full HD 9-inch touchscreen and a 1.5GHz dualcore processor. B&N steps up the memory options, too, offering a 16GB model for £229 and a 32GB for £269. Like its smaller sibling, it has an expandable memory slot, WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth, and stereo speakers.

Both tablets will be offered online as well as through high-street retailers including John Lewis, Argos, Asda, Dixons, Sainsbury, Waitrose, Blackwell’s, and Foyles.

Retailers such as John Lewis, Sainsbury’s, and if course Barnes & Noble‘s own Nook.co.uk site are now officially stocked up on NOOK Simple Touch ereaders. The regular model is priced at £79, while the Glowlight model (which has a front-lit display) will cost you £109. Those who purchase the device will have access to Barnes & Noble’s 2.5 million ebooks.

The company is also bringing their NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ over to the UK starting in late-November, but they’re available to pre-order online right now. The NOOK HD is a 7-inch tablet, while the NOOK HD+ comes with two more inches of screen real estate for those who want a bigger display. The NOOK HD will cost £159, and £229 will get you the NOOK HD+.

If you’re looking for a cheap, simple ereader, the NOOK Simple Touch is about as basic as it gets. We really like the Glowlight model, but the regular $99 model is a steal. It can store around 1,000 ebooks, but the microSD card slot makes it easy to upgrade storage space. Plus, the battery can last for up to two months.

Facebook has been axing fake accounts left and right today, while we learned that the Galaxy S III will soon be launching at MetroPCS. Apple has been suspiciously ordering large quantities of carbon fiber, and RIM experienced a stock boost today after its BlackBerry 10 presentation yesterday. Xbox Music pricing details “leaked” out today, and Amazon has launched Vine.com, a new shopping service for those concerned about the environment.

Nintendo gave us a list of 23 titles that will launch alongside the Wii U on November 18, while Boost Mobile announced the LG Venice (which looks awfully similar to the LG Optimus L7). Facebook has implemented Dropbox integration for sharing among groups, and a new Nook video is taking a few shots at both Netflix and Amazon. O2 and HTC announced today that they will be selling an incoming, yet-unannounced smartphone without a charger, seemingly to cut down on the amount of spare chargers floating around out there.

Humble Indie Bundle 6 has a bunch of new games on offer for those who pay more than the average, and Activision delivered new details on the Zombies mode in Black Ops II today. Google launched Google Play services for Android developers today, which allows them to integrate a number of Google services into their apps. Finally tonight, Chris Davies takes a closer look at the fight ahead of the Nook HD and Nook HD+ tablets, Chris Burns has a new review of the HiddenRadio Wireless Speaker, and Ewdison Then has reviews of both the Monster Inspiration Headphones and the BMW X1 Crossover, so be sure to give all of those a look!

Barnes & Noble’s first big surprise was the hardware package it had put together. Both new NOOK tablets are lighter than the competition, comfortable to hold, and well priced; the NOOK HD may look heavy on the bezel, but it makes it easier to grip like a paperback book, while the NOOK HD+ is half the price of the new iPad but still manages to feel roughly as solid as Apple’s slate.

The screen quality is what really catches your attention, though, with both the 1440 x 900 of the HD and the 1920 x 1280 of the HD+ looking not only crisp and sharp, but having great viewing angles and – thanks to the optically-laminated glass – graphics that seem to float just beneath your fingertip. If the Nexus 7 feels like it has made some quality compromises to hit Google’s price target, B&N has somehow managed to achieve its own competitive pricing without your fingers feeling it.

As for the software, that’s the second strong punch. It’s reskinned Android, something Google and the Android faithful might object to, but which makes sense for a media tablet like the NOOK and the sort of audience that B&N is aiming for. Sensibly it’s not bells & whistles for the sake of UI differentiation, but instead a number of modifications some of which Google could do worse than to borrow for core Android.

So, there’s multi-user profiles, because B&N’s customers didn’t want to buy a new NOOK for everyone in the house, but still wanted to allow everyone to use the tablet pretty much as they see fit. You obviously get access to the retailer’s curated app, movie, TV show, and ebook stores, but you can also lock them down – just as you can the browser, email, or any other apps – so that you can leave the HD and HD+ in the hands of your offspring without worrying about them accessing something they shouldn’t be seeing, or indeed charging dozens of downloads to your card. But, there’s also cross-profile sharing of purchased content, so that mom and dad can each read Fifty Shades of Grey without having to buy their own copy.

Although Amazon’s sales success – and the likely success of the NOOK HD and HD+ – may seem unusual at first glance, they’re arguably just evidence that few other Android tablet manufacturers have quite grasped what Apple did so well with the iPad. Like the iPod worked as a conduit for music sales, and the iPhone opened up the mobile app market, so the iPad put multimedia and software purchases in your face. Selling people a single piece of hardware is a way to make money once, but regularly selling them content to enjoy on it is a revenue stream that keeps on giving.

Even Google’s Nexus 7, blessed with a competitive price, seemed to be getting the message on the value of content. Rather than apps like the browser and Gmail, the Google Play media downloads were put front-and-center by default on the Nexus 7′s homescreen: big widgets leading into movie, music, and ebook downloads.

Google and ASUS may not quite be treating the 7-inch tablet as a loss-leader, but they’re under no illusion about where the ongoing revenue stream comes from. Even the bundled free credit of $25 toward Play purchases was only added to accounts which register a credit card, Google’s way of encouraging paid downloads rather than free app grabs.

Barnes & Noble’s initial success will depend largely on how well stocked it can make its electronic stores. If users can’t find the content they want, they’ll look elsewhere. However, it also needs to adequately leverage its physical stores, still a differentiator from rivals like Amazon. Ironically, given B&N is best known for selling books, that didn’t work so well with ebooks, but the company could do more with DVDs and Blu-ray if it can play up the UltraViolet angle.

Buy a physical copy of a movie with the UltraViolet logo (or, indeed, whip one off the shelf of your collection at home) and you can instantly unlock a digital version through the NOOK Video store. So far UltraViolet has failed to gain any noticeable traction, but a tightly-integrated brick & mortar retailer/digital device duo could tip that in Barnes & Noble’s favor.

The NOOK HD and HD+ still have a battle ahead of them. The iPad has captured mindshare among those who don’t really care about the technology side, and for whom “iPad” and “tablet” are fast becoming interchangeable, while Amazon has a wealth of digital content for the Kindle Fire HD. Competitive pricing and eye-catching hardware is a good place to start, however, and the NOOK HD and HD+ already do enough to eclipse much of the Android tablet line-up for the mass market.

While the tablet market is ever-expanding, Barnes & Noble has three main competitors: Amazon’s Kindle Fire line-up, recently updated; Google’s low-cost Nexus 7; and Apple’s new iPad. At first glance, however, the two new NOOKs shape up to be worthy alternatives in many ways.

NOOK HD

The smaller of the two new models, the NOOK HD offers the highest resolution display of a 7-inch tablet on the market: 1440 x 900, for 243ppi and support for 720p video playback. Tipping the scales at 315g, it undercuts the Kindle Fire HD and, at 127mm wide, is narrower too; that makes it more comfortable to grip with one hand. B&N has reused the soft-touch plastic coating of the NOOK Simple Touch - here in either “snow” white or “smoke” grey – for an easier to hold design, complete with a contoured back panel.

Inside, there’s a 1.3GHz dualcore OMAP 4470 processor paired with 1GB of RAM and either 8GB or 16GB of internal storage; a microSD card can be used to expand that, and there’s Full HD video output, albeit requiring a special dongle. B&N says the NOOK HD managed 60fps in GL Benchmarks – double what the Kindle Fire HD achieved – and its higher-resolution display uses optical lamination for improved graphics.

It’s certainly an admirable screen, with incredibly broad viewing angles: we were able to get entirely side-on to the slate and still see no color inversion. Side-by-side with a Nexus 7 – a device the screen of which we’ve praised before – and the difference in clarity and color saturation was clear, the NOOK HD coming out ahead of its ASUS-made rival. Google’s pure Android tablet has a front-facing webcam, something the NOOK HD omits, but you do get expandable storage in the B&N slate, along with SRS sound.

Connectivity includes WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth, and there’s a 4050 mAh battery good, B&N claims, for up to 10.5hrs of reading or 9hrs of video playback (with WiFi turned off). As for pricing, that’s competitive too. B&N will be asking $199 for the 8GB NOOK HD and $229 for the 16GB version (£159 and £189 respectively in the UK)

NOOK HD+

The NOOK HD+ steps up a level, delivering a 1920 x 1280 IPS LCD touchscreen that, at 256ppi, comes within spitting distance of the 264ppi new iPad Retina Display. It shares the same processor as the NOOK HD, though running slightly faster at 1.5GHz, along with 1GB of RAM and either 16GB or 32GB of storage (with a microSD card to augment it). There’s also WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth, stereo speakers with SRS sound, and Full HD video output via an HDMI adapter dongle.

Visually, the HD+’s ID is familiar, with the punched circular hole in the bottom left corner reminiscent of previous NOOK slates. Only one color option will be offered, with the HD+ measuring 240.4 x 162.8 x 11.5 mm and weighing 515g. Its 6,000 mAh battery is good for up to 10hrs of reading or 9hrs of video – with WiFi turned off – B&N says.

In the hand, it’s noticeably lighter than the new iPad when the two are compared side-by-side, and the soft-touch plastic is grippy and tactile. The optically-laminated display is beautifully bright and detailed, with icons and graphics looking crisp and text – even at minimal levels of zoom – clear and easy to read. B&N has been working with digital magazine publishers to source higher-quality files for the NOOK Store, so that magazines on the HD and HD+ are both delivered in high-definition, and the payoff is more detailed content.

It’s not the only software tweaking B&N has been doing. There’s now profile support, with the ability to set up different accounts for up to five users on the same tablet. The lockscreen shows all five – you can choose whether to password protect each account or not – and you can quickly switch between profiles from the drop-down in the top left corner.

Each profile can have certain features disabled or enabled, so that for instance you can prevent children from browsing the web or accessing the email app (which supports up to six accounts, including Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync); the NOOK Store can be password protected, and child profiles automatically log into the version filled only with age-appropriate content. Purchased content can be shared between multiple profiles, so that two users can read the same ebook, for instance.

Both new models will have access to the NOOK cloud service for storing ebooks and other content, along with the new NOOK Video store announced yesterday. There will be curated channels of content, too: if, say, you like romance novels, there’ll be a channel of hand-picked ebooks by B&N’s head bookseller together with, eventually, suitable apps for download. During setup, the NOOK HD and HD+ will ask each new owner what categories interest them, loading a few sample pieces to the homescreen so as to make the slates usable out of the box.

The cloud will also be used for storing clippings. Slide your finger down the left edge of the display and the current screen is “torn off” for clipping, with support for filing each snatched page into a different folder. Copies are saved locally and to the cloud, for accessing on all other NOOK hardware and apps, and there’s annotation and highlighting support too. B&N has squeezed in a microphone as well, allowing parents to record a narration of their child’s favorite ebook for subsequent playback.

We asked B&N about how open to hacking the new NOOK tablets it might be, given the popularity of the original NOOK Color among Android modders. The answer was somewhat evasive – B&N doesn’t see that making up a significant share of the market, and in their untampered form you can’t even sideload apps – with no confirmation on what sort of lock-down each NOOK might be subjected to.

Nonetheless, for the mass market the pair make a strong first impression. The 9-inch NOOK HD+ is half the price of the new iPad, and each version has a superb display which looks great both in reading books and playing video. Given the likelihood of a single tablet being shared among multiple family users, the profile support is great – and something which has long been requested for rival tablets.

The B&N NOOK HD and HD+ will go up for preorder in October and should begin shipping in mid-November, as well as appearing on store shelves in time for the holidays. There’ll also be a variety of accessories, including cases with Smart Cover-style active front covers that wake the NOOK HD and HD+ when opened up.