Last year marked the year of the tablet.  2011 was the year everyone decided to show off their take on the tablet, some competing with the iPad in size, while others decided to take on the cheaper side of the market.

People have different perspectives as to the use of their tablets, making it difficult to say that a particular brand is the best tablet among others.  Some say that you’re just wasting your money if you buy a cheap tablet because in the long run, you won’t be satisfied with the performance.  But some say that as long as your tablet meets your needs, then the brand or the price doesn’t matter.

The two most talked about tablets last year in terms of price, was Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet. (Hewlett-Packard’s Touch Pad is not included in this article as the $99 price was exclusive to the fire sale).  The Kindle Fire is priced at $199 while the Nook Tablet is priced at $249.  Though some argue that the Nook Tablet is far better than the Kindle Fire, that didn’t stop people from buying the cheaper tablet, quickly becoming America’s number two tablet in just six weeks.

And the main reason why the Amazon tablet is performing better in the market is because it is $50 cheaper.  B&N finally understands that $50 is still $50, so they slashed the price of the Nook Tablet for two days.  From February 16 until midnight of February 17, the price of the Nook Tablet was at $199 on eBay after entering coupon code CNOOKDEAL at checkout, and was included in eBay’s Fast N’ Free shipping, so if you were one of the few lucky ones to get the deal, you’d get the Nook Tablet before this week ends.

And here’s another surprise for those who want to purchase the Nook Tablet.  According to a report from The Verge, on Wednesday February 22, B&N will be launching an 8GB Nook Tablet which will match the Kindle Fire’s 8GB offering.  And because of the reduced storage, you can bet that the price will also be reduced to $199.

The same price of the Nook Tablet and the Kindle Fire will surely cause headaches for some tablet shoppers, but here’s one thing that could help you decide: the Nook Tablet’s storage can be upgraded with a 32GB microSD–the Fire lacks this feature.