Barnes and Noble has just released the 10.1 inch version of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook Android tablet today, and it joins the 7 inch edition that came out two months ago. The Nations largest bookseller now has two devices that they are marketing across all of their sales channels, encouraging US and UK based readers to invest themselves in the Nook ecosystem.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook features a 10.1 inch screen and a resolution of 1280×800 and 149 PPI. The screen itself won’t win many awards in terms of picture clear clarity, but if you are only reading eBooks, magazines and newspapers it should do the job.
Underneath the hood is a quad-core 1.2GHz Marvell CPU with 1.5GB RAM and 16GB internal storage. This model does have support for a 64 GB micro SD, if you need to get more space for all of your music and videos. Unlike Nooks of the past, this model has two cameras, a rear facing 3 MP edition and front facing 1.3 MP for video calls. It weighs 17.28 oz. (489.9 g) and should garner you 10 hours of battery life via the 6.8 mAh battery.
Barnes and Noble is hyping the fact this tablet costs $299 and comes with $200 of free content. What exactly do you get? Well, Customers will receive four free bestselling eBooks including And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, Two of a Kind (Fool’s Gold Series #12) by Susan Mallery and The Best American Series 2014: 12 Short Stories & Essays by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, as well as an episode each of three hit TV shows: The Newsroom and Curb Your Enthusiasm from HBO, as well as Disney’s The Octonauts.
The resolution on this tablet is actually a downgrade from the Nook HD+ that many customers have, but it does have a modern version of Android 4.4, which will insure almost all of the apps from Google Play will work. I think the biggest strength that Barnes and Noble has when selling this 10.1 tablet is their support network. If anything goes wrong with your device, you can simply bring it back to any bookstore and they can take a look at it. In most cases, they can swap out your old model for a new one right then and there.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.