Barnes and Noble took aim at Amazon's red-hot Kindle Fire this week when it announced a 7 inch $199 Android tablet with 8 GB of storage of its very own. If it sounds familiar, it should because it's very close to the Fire in every respect (although Amazon created its own Android fork for its tablet).

Of course, the B&N version is tuned to let you buy and consume Barnes and Noble Content. Other specifications for the new device include a 1 Ghz processor and an SD card slot for additional storage requirements.

Barnes and Noble also announced its third quarter numbers this week, and it showed that the Nook is keeping the company going. According to a company statement, "NOOK unit sales, including NOOK Simple Touch, NOOK Color and the new NOOK Tablet, increased 64 percent during the third quarter as compared to the same period last year."

In addition, the company reported that consolidated Nook sales, which B&N defines as the devices themselves, sales of digital content and related accessories (such as cases) were up 38 percent. And digital content sales were up a brisk 85 percent over the same period last year.

It's worth noting that B&N does add a caveat to these numbers, that they "reflect the actual selling price for eBooks sold under the agency model rather than solely the commission received." What's more, the Nook sales include devices sold to channel partners.

So in other words, the picture might not be as rosy as they paint it, but it still appears quite strong.

For more information and all the numbers:
- see the Barnes and Noble Q3 results press release
- see the Barnes and Noble $199 Nook announcement

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