Barnes & Noble, putatively regarded as the largest U.S. retail bookseller, is releasing its most affordable tablet yet named the Nook Tablet, a lightweight Android-powered tablet.
Per usual, the Nook Tablet will have access to Barnes & Noble's sweeping content, which the company claims to include millions of Nook books, thousands of Nook audiobooks and hundreds of magazines accessible via its proprietary Nook store.
Nook Tablet
While the Nook Tablet might be cheap at $49.99, it still comes with a 7-inch IPS touchscreen display, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera and a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, a quad-core processor, Bluetooth and 8 GB of internal storage expandable up to 128 GB. Interestingly, Barnes & Noble claims that users can download most Nooks Books onto the microSD card, though it hasn't specified what types of content are eligible.
Barnes & Noble says that users can squeeze out up to seven hours of reading, watching videos and browsing the web.
The Nook Tablet will run on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, needless to say that it will have access to Google Play Store, letting users peruse through a sizable array of games, apps, movies, music and TV shows.
"We're extremely excited to introduce our most affordable NOOK ever, just in time for the holiday shopping season, so customers can give their loved ones the gift of reading forever for less," Fred Argir, Barnes & Noble's chief digital officer, said.
The holiday season is almost upon us, and Barnes & Noble is keen to pull those looking for e-readers and inexpensive tablets to give as a gift to opt for the Nook Tablet instead of the similarly priced Amazon Fire.
Enhanced Digital Bookstore
Barnes & Noble's newly enhanced digital bookstore B&N Readouts will be featured on the device, giving users access to a growing selection of reading materials.
B&N Readouts offer a daily curation of content culled from its library, so users can browse and download books, magazines and newspapers based on these recommendations.
Through B&N Readouts, users may opt to subscribe to Serial Reads, a program by Barnes & Noble that delivers free, hand-picked fiction monthly, parsed down to chapters delivered each day.
Nook Profiles
The Nook Tablet also carries over Nook Profiles, giving users the leeway to create up to six profiles with personalized customizations for each, so one family can share a single device and never have to worry about overlapping content.
Parents can even set up their children's profiles with access to kid-friendly Nook content.
Nook Tablet Availability
The Nook Tablet will hit Barnes & Noble stores starting Nov. 25 for $49.99, but users can preorder the tablet now.
This marks the first time for Barnes & Noble to release its own tablet. Previous Nook e-readers were collaborations with Samsung that brought Nook-branded Samsung Galaxy tablets. This is the most inexpensive tablet in Barnes & Noble's roster, with the e-ink GlowLight Plus e-reader coming in second at $129.
