Barnes & Noble have collaborated with Samsung to introduce a new Nook tablet. For 2016, the new Nook-branded device is the Samsung Galaxy Tab A Nook, which is available for the regular price of $139.99. Existing customers may be able to upgrade to the Galaxy Tab A Nook for the reduced price of $99.99, providing customers either trade in their old device or show proof of purchase of another Nook device. Barnes & Noble also have a special offer of a free cover, worth $39.95, for Members when they take advantage of the upgrade offer.
The key difference between the vanilla, Samsung Galaxy Tab A (2016) and the Tab A Nook model is that the Nook variant comes pre-loaded with Barnes & Noble’s Nook software. This bundled content includes Nook profiles, which allows customers to set up six different profiles on the device so that all of the family can use the tablet their way. The Tab A Nook also includes Barnes & Noble’s Readouts, which provides customers with two minute book excerpts together with articles from magazines and newspapers. Readouts also includes Serial Reads, an application providing customers with a new book every month but delivered in daily chapters. However, in other respects the devices are very similar. There’s a 7.0-inch, 1,280 by 800 pixel display, either a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 or a Spreadtrum SC9830 quad-core chipset, 1.5 GB of RAM, 8 GB of storage backed up by a microSD card slot, and a 4,000 mAh battery. The device runs Android 5.1.1 (Lollipop) and comes with a 2-megapixel front-facing camera and a 5-megapixel rear camera, as well as an FM tuner.
Out of the box, the Tab A Nook does not support Nook Audiobooks but Barnes & Noble are planning to add this feature via a software update to be made available in September. Meanwhile, the Tab A Nook supports the Google Play Store, meaning customers can access all compatible applications and games from here. Being a Nook product, the device can access Barnes & Noble’s service, which includes over four million books and of these more than a million are priced at under $5. There are over 110,000 children’s books and more than 11,000 interactive picture books. The Nook Newsstand includes the top 100 bestselling U.S. magazines available as a digital subscription or single copy sales. The Nook reading software includes the “ArticleView” reading tool, designed to let the reader focus on the text. And as with other Nook products, the Tab A Nook comes with lifetime in-store support, free Wi-Fi and the Read In Store scheme, which allows guests to read any book for up to an hour a day.