Galaxy Tab 4 Nook
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Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook review: good for reading, but hardly the best budget tablet
There was a time when Barnes & Noble was so big, so dominating, that even Tom Hanks managed to look like a jerk when he played a book-chain executive. But times have changed, and as people began to order their books online -- or even download them -- B&N found itself struggling to keep up. After losing a lot of money last year, the company decided it was time for a change: It vowed to stop making its own tablets, and instead team up with some third-party company to better take on Amazon and its Kindle Fire line. Turns out, that third party was none other than Samsung, and the fruits of their partnership, the $179 Galaxy Tab 4 Nook, is basically a repackaged version of the existing Galaxy Tab 4 7.0. Well, almost, anyway. The 7-inch slate comes pre-loaded with $200 worth of free content, and the core Nook app has been redesigned to the point that it actually offers a better reading experience than the regular Nook Android app. But is that a good enough reason to buy this instead of a Kindle Fire? Or any other Android tablet, for that matter?
Hands-on with the Galaxy Tab 4 Nook
The Nook tablets were seriously underappreciated. And while Samsung certainly makes some nice devices, there's something a little sad about seeing the Nook name slapped on a rather generic-looking slate from the Korean manufacturer. But it was inevitable, I suppose. After years of hemorrhaging cash as the market for physical books dried up, Barnes & Noble had to find ways to save money, and outsourcing the manufacturing of its slow-selling slates to a third party made perfect sense. The first device to result from this new approach is the Galaxy Tab 4 Nook. And, while it might sound a little glib, it's basically just the Galaxy Tab you already know with a few software extras baked in. But, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Barnes & Noble launches the $179 Galaxy Tab 4 Nook
Barnes & Noble has officially kicked off a new era -- one in which it doesn't manufacture its own tablets. The struggling book outlet announced last summer that it would work with other manufacturers going forward and Samsung is first in line. The Galaxy Tab 4 Nook is the fruit of this partnership. It's a tablet built for reading first, as opposed to gaming or web browsing. While the device is undeniably Samsung, the software still retains some of that Barnes & Noble flair. Anyone who's used the previous Nook tablets will immediately recognize some of the features baked in here. The default homescreen has a widget showing recommended and recently read titles. Naturally, too, Barnes & Noble's Nook store is the primary content source, rather than the Play Store or Samsung Hub. But it's obvious that Sammy is in the driver's seat. Key features like multi-window mode are even included for some multi-tasking (say, if you want to tweet a quote from your favorite novel). B&N is pitching it as "the first full-featured Android tablet designed for reading." Then again, the company has said the same about every other Nook tablet.
Barnes & Noble teases its Samsung-made tablet
In order to save cash, Barnes & Noble decided to kill off its homegrown line of Nook tablets, and just asked Samsung to rebrand a Galaxy Tab instead. We've already seen images of the elegantly-named 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook, but in a new video, discovered by The Digital Reader, the bookseller asks Nook-owning customers to give the device a spin. The company even recruited Grumpy Cat to glare disapprovingly at the hardware, albeit with the caption "I don't hate it." Given that it's less than a week before the company's glitzy New York launch, it won't be long before we can get the slate into our testing labs and work out if it's as good as those passionate Nook fans -- who were paid with a new Nook for their time -- say it is.
Barnes & Noble teams up with Samsung for its newest Nook tablet
It's no secret that Barnes & Noble has been trying to save money by offloading its tablet development to someone else, but more than a few people expected that "someone" to be Microsoft. Mmm, not quite. The bookseller revealed today that its (first) tablet partner is none other than Samsung, and that the 7-inch Galaxy Tab 4 Nook they've been working on will launch in August.
