Back in the early days of tablets -- about three or four years ago -- Barnes & Noble was a major player in the market. But that was then, and this is now: with the exception of its GlowLight e-ink reader, the bookseller is now out of the tablet hardware business, having opted instead to partner with Samsung.
The first fruit of the collaboration is the Galaxy Tab 4 Nook. The hardware isn't new at all: in fact, this is exactly the same tablet as the existing Galaxy Tab 4 7.0, available at the same price ($179 with a $20 rebate). But the Nook version uses Barnes & Noble's own Android skin (an updated holdover of the company's earlier tablets), and throws in a dollop of freebies, including a trio of e-books, three TV episodes, and some trial magazine subscriptions.
The result is perfectly decent 7-inch tablet with all the basics (microSD expansion slot, the current Android KitKit 4.4 operating system, full access to Google Play app store), along with a handful of nice extras (it has GPS and doubles as a TV remote, for instance). But with screen resolution that's a bit of a step back from that of the the 2012 Nook HD and an inevitable parade of cheap-but-good tablets on tap for the last few months of the year, the Galaxy Tab Nook has its work cut out for it. And in the end, for fans of the Nook e-book ecosystem, it may not even matter: they can still use that app on any iOS or Android device of their choosing.
Design and specs
Let's restate the fact: the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook is the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 7.0 that was released just a few months ago, but with Nook-centric apps and features baked into the interface. If you're a current Galaxy Tab 4 owner and that doesn't sound like much of a selling point, you're right. The re's a headphone jack at the top and a Micro-USB charging port on the bottom. The physical home button is flanked on either side by the capacitive back and app-switcher buttons on the lower bezel. The lock switch and volume control rocker are on the right side, while the microSD card slot sits on the bottom right, hidden by a flap that's secure, but fairly easy to open when you need to. There's also an IR blaster on the side, so you can use the tablet as a remote control with the Samsung WatchOn app.V
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Barnes & Noble and Samsung call the Tab 4 Nook the first Android tablet "optimized for reading." That's a rather specific claim, but the tablet does a pleasant job of serving up text. The 7-inch display has a 1,280-by-800-pixel resolution, giving it a pixel density of 215 pixels per inch. You can get 7-inch tablets with higher-resolution displays without spending too much more -- and, annoyingly, the Tab 4 Nook is a step back from the 1,440-by-900-pixel (243ppi) of the company's 2012 Nook HD tablet -- but the screen on the Tab 4 Nook is fine: colors are reproduced accurately and there was no shifting when I tilted the screen at awkward angles.
