Barnes and Noble has released a new Nook Tablet that was designed by Lenovo. It’s another low end model like the last Nook Tablet, and it has an even lower resolution screen.
The new Nook Tablet is available to order from Barnes and Noble’s website for $129 with free shipping.
The low price tells you all you need to know about the specs.
They downgraded the screen resolution on this model to 1280 x 800. That’s only 149ppi! That’s as low as it gets and it’s supposed to be a tablet designed for reading? Even the $49 Fire tablet has 171ppi. The Fire HD 10 has a 224ppi screen and it’s only $20 more than the new Nook, and it often goes on sale for $99.
I just don’t get it. Are Barnes and Noble customers the type of people that want to own one of the cheapest tablets available? Offering low end tablets makes sense for places like Walmart and Amazon, but does it make sense for Barnes and Noble? Are people that spend the least on a tablet the type of people that are going to then spend a lot on digital content in the form of Nook ebooks and audiobooks?
Why not offer something a bit nicer like the old Nook HD+ and Nook HD? At least they had nice high resolution screens suitable for reading. The Nook HD+ was released back in 2012 with a gorgeous 256ppi screen. What has happened to Nook tablets? Now B&N just rebrands the cheapest, lowest-specced tablet they can find.
On the plus side of things, the new Nook Tablet runs Android 10 and it comes with Google Play support to install Android apps. It has an octa-core CPU, a USB-C port, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, an FM radio, 32GB of storage, and a microSD card slot. It also has an 8MP rear camera, a 5MP front camera, and it’s a bit lighter than other 10-inch tablets at 420 grams.
It only has 2GB of RAM though. That’s really not enough for an Android tablet in 2021—it’s going to be laggy. Even Onyx’s E Ink ereaders come with at least 3GB now, except the 6-inch Poke, which has 2GB.
What do you think of the new Nook Tablet? Would you buy one for $129? Or would you rather spend more on something a bit nicer?
Huh, I thought it was going to be a rebranded Lenovo M10+ which has a 1920 x 1200 screen.
This is a rebranded M10 HD has a 1280×800 screen, M10 Plus is a different model entirely
Maybe B & N is trying to stay relevant to its fan base?
The problem is I don’t think its fan base is interested in buying the cheapest products available. People that shop at B&N are willing to pay full cover price for books, including hard covers. Why would these people want to buy one of the lowest end, cheapest tablets on the market? That strategy makes sense for Amazon that sells all kinds of products, both digital and physical, but Barnes and Noble has far fewer revenue streams to take advantage of on a tablet, especially when you can just use Google Play to install other apps and avoid using B&N altogether.
Given what you said, it makes more sense for them to then sell a tablet rather than a dedicated ereader with a limited revenue source. They might think that people will buy that as it is more useful than their ereaders.
As someone who has had several Nook e-readers, the fan base wants an e-reader with better software options, not a tablet. Does anyone ever listen to fan bases?
Two new updates to Nook GL3 and Nook GL plus 05 – 2021 are available. Turn on wifi and go to setting click check for update.
I think BN is misinterpreting the success of Amazon’s fire tablets to mean cheap is the way to go. They know they can’t compete with the iPad, so neither company tries. Amazon had a lot of services to offer though, and while cheap their tablets are still a good value. In match-ups the HD8 and HD10 never win, but they are never dead last either. They tend to be in the middle and sometimes get the nod simply for being the best deal. I think with this tablet BN is shooting for dead last in an attempt to undercut Amazon on price. I don’t think it work. Nobody actually wants the worst of something.
Indeed. I don’t know why they are trying to compete with the Fire HD 10 in the first place considering the only digital products B&N sells are ebooks and audiobooks. Unlike Amazon they aren’t making a dime off of all the other content consumed on their tablets.
In answer to your question about “will you buy” the answer is a no, definitely not. I would not buy any BN product. They were a great company back when their very first ereader came out. The Nook was my first main WiFi reader coming from the Franklin reader, ebookwise and then Sony Pocket reader. I chose a Nook over Kindle because I did not like the look of the Kindle. I accumulated over 800 books with BN. I liked their first reader, loved the Simple Touch. I had problems with the lighted Nook and gravitated to Kobo when they acquired Sony’s customers. At that time Kobo’s system had an odd, irritating glitch where you tapped to turn a page and it advanced several – I hated it so I finally moved to Kindle. I have had the various newer Nooks but they have always fallen at the bottom of the comparison list. I moved back to Kobo when they came out with the larger Aura One and Kobo is pretty much my main store. I switch between Kindle and Kobo. I bought the larger Nook but found it to be very slow though I liked the design. Nook just cannot get it’s feet under it to get back to what it was in the beginning. Too many bad decisions, not paying attention to what their customers want, the breach they tried to hide by lying to their customers before finally telling the hopeful truth – I just do not trust them. I did try to support BN. I have bought all of their devices they have come out with – every version of the Glowlight – hoping to find that success but in my opinion they just have failed completely. I would not buy a tablet from them especially after the malware incident. You would think they would learn but show they haven’t. To take a good tablet and downgrade things just to have a low price to me is just another BN bad decision to stay away from. You almost just wish they would throw in the towel instead of all of the unsuccessful floundering.
Plus, I can’t believe how tiny the banner is advertising the new tablet for preorder. The webpage you pull up is so busy you almost miss the information. Another sign to me that BN really doesn’t care about their Nooks.
Suzanne,
Your comments here should be in the email inbox of the president of B&N. Sign your missive to them: “Tortured Reader”
Loved it!
I prefer to use a Chinese $ 60 10 inch Android 8.1 tablet (Mediatek ZH960) – everything is more realistic in terms of color and much more fluid.
I really don’t understand why B&N would market such a tablet. I have a MacBook and iPad. If I want to read without any distractions, I take out my Kindle or Nook e reader. I will not be buying this tablet.
I agree. My Kindle is a dedicated reading device. I don’t want it to have color, apps or be a part time e-reader and to try to be a tablet. Amazon fire is more budget friendly and iPad more premium. BN is not going to make money in this market. I truly believe they are not long for this world.
Your post reminds me to dig up the Nook HD+ to charge it. I have not touched it for a long long time. I bought Nook HD+ for about $200 when most 9″ and 10″ Android tablets costed a few hundreds around 2013.
Now, there are a lot of low cost Android tablets around. I don’t think Nook is a good idea when you look at the competitions,
What’s more, for my Nook HD+, I had to pay $20 to install Android (or unlock it). Later B&N offered to provide Android for free. The original Nook HD+ was very limited.
What I don’t understand is why they just didn’t release a 10 inch eReader? I mean there is a market for that. Offer it for a cheaper price and maybe downgrade the specs a little bit if they just had to in order to make it cost effective, while at the same time competitive. That is what would have boosted sales and increased relevancy for B&N.
I’ve had many Nook models. My previous one (which just died, so had to be replaced) was the 8-inch Samsung Nook tablet, which I loved and used constantly for years. I didn’t like the other models that came after that one (which weren’t Samsung, because Samsung suddenly had overheating-and-possibly-catching-on-fire phone battery problems then), and ignored them. I’ve replaced my dead Samsung Nook with this Lenovo one, and it’s okay so far. I’m not going to bitterly complain. I want something to read books and web pages on, that’ll also let me listen to zillions of podcasts, and maybe play some puzzle games, and this seems to serve fine. I just lost a device on which I’d packed years of stuff, and miss it hugely, so this Lenovo Nook is probably as lame as you claim, but it came at exactly the right time for me.
Bought one of these with the wife’s employee discount – With tax it came in at around $117 which isn’t bad for a basic tablet. While the graphics and performance aren’t outstanding, having full access to the Google playstore and apps for productivity and very light gaming programs is very handy. Plus being able to stream Prime Video, Netflix and Disney+ and download to a 256gb Micro SD chip makes it quite convenient. Even with the Kindle Fire’s you’re stuck with Amazon’s crappy app-store selection.
Unfortunately it’s not too much of a price bump for a more full-featured tablet, but for an inexpensive reader with Google Play access it does the job for a little over $100 – Great if you have kids or want to just stream video while you’re cooking or waiting for appointments somewhere.
Compared to my low end moto phone the resolution is really really BAD. Watching art YouTube tutorials was horrible. But for books it seems perfect. Playing an arcade style game from the play store was fine.
I got the new Nook a couple weeks ago. I’ve had a 7 inch and 8 inch Kindle Fire HD, and struggled with them. I’ve had low-end Lenovo tablets, and they were fine when they were released, but as Android evolved, they were left behind, though I still have two that work just fine for watching Netflix: Yoga Tablet 10 and Lenovo Tab 8 (2015).
This new tablet is peppier, the OS is familiar and not intrusive, and I find myself reading books and comics more than I have in literally years. I’ve been using it daily and while I wish the battery life were a bit better, I think it’s fantastic for the price. I bought mine at a store with the membership discount and added in the accidental damage coverage. If I wanted a higher end tablet, I’d buy one, but this fits my needs well enough that I am thankful for the availability of this device.
I agree that I wish that the resolution were a bit higher. Netflix only allows SD content on the new Nook. But I still use if for Netflix. The sound is good. Bass is limited, but one expects that on a thin tablet. I also haven’t figured out how to force Google Maps into Dark Mode yet. Using a U3 SanDisk 256GB SD card, videos and other content load rapidly and I haven’t found a use I have for the thing that it can’t provide.
I do advise you take all the comments here into account, and ensure that you fiddle with one in the store if you can before buying. But I am VERY pleased with my new Lenovo Nook.
The new Lenovo tablet is terrible!! There is nothing about it I like. My “classic” nook tablet just died, I could no longer charge it so I needed a new tablet. I had no idea that it had changed so much. I would not have gotten it. I have had so many problems already. It doesn’t even have a “back arrow” on the bottom. I would tell anyone not to waste their money on it.