The 8-inch full HD (2,048 x 1,536) display makes it a fully fledged multimedia service, offering movies, TV shows, apps, games, and newspapers on top of Barnes & Noble’s massive library of books. It is the same size as the iPad Mini, but a tad larger than the Kindle Paperwhite and Nook Glowlight.
Internally, the Galaxy Tab S2 Nook has enough power to compete with high-end tablets, running on the octa-core Exynos 5420 processor and 2GB of RAM. The battery lasts up to 14 hours, according to Barnes & Noble.
There is 32GB of onboard storage, alongside an 128GB MicroSD card for expansion. The home button has an embedded fingerprint scanner, but still uses the same swipe technology as the Galaxy S5, which was not accurate.
Dual-stereo speakers should be an excellent feature for those that want to watch a lot of movies on the Galaxy Tab S2 Nook. The Multi-window feature Samsung adds to all of its tablets is available on this tablet, alongside more parental controls.
Barnes & Noble is adding a few additional freebies for customers, including Microsoft Office apps, Wi-Fi at Barnes & Noble stores, Nook Cloud storage, Nook books that you can read for free in-store and lifetime support in-store.
Samsung has added the latest version of Android, but Barnes & Noble has slapped its own skin over it. YouTube, Gmail, and all the usual Google apps are available, alongside Samsung and Barnes & Noble’s own, meaning there will be quite a bit of bloatware on the system.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 Nook will start at $399 on the Barnes & Noble store.
The additional freebies from Barnes & Noble make this tablet worthwhile, if you are a Barnes & Noble member or frequent the bookstore. For those that want a normal tablet, there are cheaper alternatives that still offer a wide range of books and movies, including Amazon’s Fire HD range.
