Samsung and Barnes & Noble launched the Galaxy Tab 4 with Nook branding Wednesday, which is the first Android tablet optimized for reading e-books.
The tablet is a revamped, co-branded Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 and will have the same hardware specification. It will retail for $179. The new tablet, catering to readers of e-books, will be available online and in Barnes & Noble stores starting Wednesday.
“We’ve taken our bestselling Samsung Galaxy tablet and made it the best tablet available for reading and entertainment,” said Tim Baxter, president of Samsung Electronics America, in a statement.
Buyers will also get $200 in free content from the Nook store, including books, magazines and TV shows.
The Galaxy Tab 4 Nook will have a seven-inch display, with 1,280-by-800-pixel resolution. The tablet comes fitted with a 3 megapixel camera and 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, a feature requested by Nook users. It will have 8GB of internal storage, which can be expanded up to 32GB via Micro SD.
Barnes & Noble has struggled to compete with tablets by Apple. Google‘s Android said that the new tablet does not mean it is abandoning its own line of Nook tablets and will continue to provide support for the devices.
Barnes & Noble CEO Michael Huseby said the new device was a response to Nook customers’ request for an all-in-one device for reading, using the Internet and app usage.
“The Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK is the most advanced NOOK ever, delivering the great NOOK experience our customers have come to love, with the high-performance tablet features they’ve asked for,” Huseby said in a statement.
