Samsung May Have Just Saved The Nook Tablet Brand

By Kevin Parrish
published

It's no secret that the NOOK tablets didn't sell like Barnes & Noble had hoped. The company had a hard time distinguishing its product amongst the other Android tablets in a cutthroat 7-inch tablet market. Because of the heat, the bookseller understandably jumped out of the hardware business and let its former rivals do all the hardware handiwork, including Samsung.

Thus enter the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK, a co-branded tablet that costs a surprisingly low $179. The tablet has a 7-inch OLED screen with a 1280 x 800 (216 ppi) resolution, a quad-core Snapdragon processor clocked at 1.2 GHz, 1.5 GB of RAM, 8 GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot for 32 GB of additional storage and a battery promising up to 10 hours on a single charge.

"The co-branded devices will combine popular Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 hardware with customized NOOK software to give customers powerful, full-featured tablets that are designed for reading, with easy access to Barnes & Noble's expansive digital collection of more than three million books, leading magazines and newspapers," Barnes & Noble said back in June.

The NOOK tablet also includes GPS, Wireless N connectivity, a 1.3MP camera on the front and a 3MP camera on the back. The tablet is powered by Android 4.4 "KitKat," and it surprisingly offers access to Google Play. That indicates that the NOOK user interface, which loads when you boot the device, is likely a special Android launcher that can be disabled.

To reel in new customers, Barnes & Noble has thrown in $200 worth of free contentsuch as three bestselling eBooks, one episode of three popular television shows, four 14-day free trial subscriptions to magazines, and $5 to spend in the NOOK Store. Free items will also be handed out during the company's Free Fridays program.

Will Samsung save the NOOK tablet brand? Only time will tell, but based on the provided information, book lovers may like this Samsung/Barnes & Noble marriage better than the previous in-house NOOK tablets. Google Play was made present on the NOOK HD and NOOK HD+, but apparently that just wasn't enough to keep NOOK tablet revenues afloat.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK comes in either Black or White.

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Kevin Parrish
Topics
Samsung
Tablets
7 Comments Comment from the forums
  • lpedraja2002
    The thing that is killing the nook is the poor implementation with the Barnes and nobles store. Books barely have any info and doesn't even tell you how many pages and you have to be careful since they're allowing people to sell just about every piece of crap through the store.
    Reply
  • Steve Simons
    My biggest problem with the Nook was despite its sizable price tag at the time, they were absolutely horrible at updating apps. My twitter and facebook app would never run properly and would never update, despite numerous attempts. This happened virtually all the time with lots of apps. As a reader, it was fine, but was an utter waste for anything else. The specs at the time were pretty good too.

    I have vowed to "never again" buy anything electronic related to B&N. For a market that was at its infancy, they really gave it up to Amazon with amazing ease.
    Reply
  • Blazer1985
    Nice try. Adding some impossibly small hands in photoshop (first image) they made it look like a 11" device. Pathetic.
    Reply
  • thechief73
    lpedraja2002 is right, everything wrong with the Nook line-up was anything to do with Barnes and Noble. From the terribly clunky branded interface to lack of options and customization. And that awful B&N store.... On top of all that the COMPLETE lack of ANY competent support or customer service. If you were not tech savvy enough to solve issues on your own or know how to strong arm trough all their BS you might as well toss it in the can. But the hardware and prices were unbeatable as they slid down that slippery slope. I have a Nook HD and absolutely love it. Why? Because it was incredibly cheap and bought 100% knowing I was going to install CyanogenMod from the start, I never intended it being a dedicated reader.

    If B&N just learned how to provide good services to their customers I think they would have enjoyed much more success.
    Reply
  • kawininjazx
    I remember when the Nook Color could run Android off an SD Card and was the first affordable Android tablet.
    Reply
  • lpedraja2002
    14003636 said:
    lpedraja2002 is right, everything wrong with the Nook line-up was anything to do with Barnes and Noble. From the terribly clunky branded interface to lack of options and customization. And that awful B&N store.... On top of all that the COMPLETE lack of ANY competent support or customer service. If you were not tech savvy enough to solve issues on your own or know how to strong arm trough all their BS you might as well toss it in the can. But the hardware and prices were unbeatable as they slid down that slippery slope. I have a Nook HD and absolutely love it. Why? Because it was incredibly cheap and bought 100% knowing I was going to install CyanogenMod from the start, I never intended it being a dedicated reader.

    If B&N just learned how to provide good services to their customers I think they would have enjoyed much more success.

    Hey would you mind giving me a link for an easy guide on how to install cyanogen? I've been meaning to do it for a while now but haven't read up the materials on xda. All I know is I need an sd card.
    Reply
  • thechief73
    Hey would you mind giving me a link for an easy guide on how to install cyanogen? I've been meaning to do it for a while now but haven't read up the materials on xda. All I know is I need an sd card.
    Sure, I sent you a private message to avoid cluttering up the comments and if you have any questions maybe I could help you out also.
    Reply