Two new Nook tablets unveiled by Barnes & Noble

This undated image provided by Barnes & Noble shows one of the two new Nook tablets the company will be releasing in the fall of 2012. The company said Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012, that its new Nook HD will come in two sizes, one with a screen 7-inches wide diagonally, the same size as past Nooks, starting at $199, and one with a new 9-inch diagonal screen, called the Nook HD+, starting at $269. AP PHOTO/BARNES & NOBLE

NEW YORK—Two new versions of the Nook tablet were unveiled Wednesday by Barnes & Noble, as the bookseller backed by Microsoft moved to challenge rivals from Apple, Amazon and others.

BN said it would start selling a new seven-inch Nook for $199 and a nine-inch version for $269, as alternatives to Amazon’s Kindle Fire and the iPad from Apple. They will be available in early November.

“With the combination of the highest resolution screen, lightest weight and expansive access to content rendered in a digital quality never before seen, Nook HD is the world’s best seven-inch media tablet,” said BN chief executive William Lynch.

“We designed our larger format tablet Nook HD+ because we think there’s big demand from customers for a super-light, extremely high-quality nine-inch tablet, at half the price of the iPad.”

The company said the smaller Nook would have 25 percent more pixels than Kindle Fire HD and would also be lighter than its rival.

The move came a day after Barnes & Noble said it would launch a video service with films and television programs, which can be purchased by owners of its Nook tablet in the United States and Britain.

The company earlier this year said it was bringing its Nook to Britain, the first customers outside the US market.

Nook has had a small share of the tablet market in the United States behind Apple’s iPad and Amazon’s Kindle Fire. It teamed up this year with Microsoft, which agreed to pump $300 million into the company’s Nook unit.