As expected, Barnes & Noble has taken the wraps off of its latest Nook today — the so-called Nook Tablet, designed to replace the Nook Color with refreshed specs across the board including an "HD viewing experience." On the hardware side, the Tablet gets a 1GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM in a package that weighs under a pound. The display — sourced from LG — is an IPS unit (like the iPhone and iPad, among others) that offers a near 180-degree viewing angle, and it can play back up to nine hours of 1080p video on a single charge.

Speaking of video, the Tablet has Netflix and Hulu Plus pre-loaded, and the company is promising the deepest level of Netflix integration available on a device thanks to a customized app. Video takes a lot of space, of course, so Barnes & Noble put 16GB of storage inside the device with up to 32GB of expansion via SD. Content is also stored on the company's just-announced Nook Cloud service, Barnes & Noble's foray into the cloud storage game made popular by Amazon and others.

Pre-orders will be available immediately, with units showing up "on or about" November 17th for $249. Barnes & Noble will also be retailing the Nook Tablet through a variety of other outlets including Best Buy, Target, Walmart, RadioShack, OfficeMax, Staples, and others.

How does the Nook Tablet stack up against its predecessor and its bitter rival, Amazon's Kindle Fire? The company made a point of harshing on the Fire during the introduction, pointing out that the Nook Tablet has double the internal storage and RAM — and it also noted that the Fire looks like a PlayBook. Ouch! Have a full look at the blow-by-blow over in our database.