Two years after launching a $50 Android tablet with a 7 inch display, Barnes & Noble is back with a new model.

The 2018 NOOK 7″ Tablet is now available from B&N online and in stores for $50. For the most part the new model looks identical to its predecessor, but the 2018 model does have twice as much storage.

The NOOK 7″ Tablet features a 7 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel IPS display, 16GB of storage, and a microSD card reader with support for cards up to 128GB.

It supports dual-band WiFi, but tops out at 802.11n speeds.

Other features include a 3.5mm headphone jack, a micro USB 2.0 port, a 2MP rear camera, and a VGA front-facing camera.

The tablet measures 7.4″ x 4.2″ x 0.4″ and B&N says you should get up to 7 hours of battery life while watching videos and web browsing.

Clearly this isn’t the only $50 tablet on the market — it competes with Amazon’s entry-level Fire tablet which also has a 7 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display. But the NOOK 7″ Tablet has a few things going for it.

First, it ships with something closer to stock Android software, complete with access to the Google Play Store. Second, the $50 price tag doesn’t include ads on the lock screen that you have to pay to remove. Third, you can get in-store support by visiting a Barnes & Noble store. And now there’s a fourth advantage — the NOOK 7″ tablet has twice as much built-in storage as an entry-level Fire tablet.

That said, Amazon has a more complete family of tablets than B&N. While the bookseller recently launched a $130 tablet with a 10.1 inch display, Barnes & Noble doesn’t have anything to compete with Amazon’s $80 Fire HD 8 tablet or the company’s Kids Edition range of devices.

press release

 

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20 replies on “B&N launches a new $50 NOOK 7″ tablet”

  1. Got one of these with a gift card I got last year but hadn’t used yet.

    Ships with Oreo Go. Tablet model is BNTV460, Processor and RAM are same as 2016 model (BNTV450, MT8163 1.3GHz quadcore, 1GB RAM).

    Needed 1 update out of box. (about 75mb)

    For $50, it’s not bad. I’m happy with it. 🙂

    1. Thanks for posting the specs. That’s a better processor (MT8163 with A53 cores) than the Fire 7 (MT8127 with A7 cores). Same 1GB RAM & 16GB internal storage. And of course, (hopefully) stock Android over FireOS version of Android is another plus as stated numerous times above.

  2. 2018 Model? Released December 2018? Seems like at this point they should have called this the 2019 model.

  3. Does anyone know who actually makes these, or is it just generically Foxconn?

      1. Thank you!
        I have a friend who’s looking to replace a many years old LG tablet, and I’m wondering if might work. We might have to stop by B&N sometime in the future and see if they have a demo to play with.

        1. I’m glad my information helped you, though I don’t quite get how. My information might have helped myself if the OEM sold their tablet outside B&N as well, as I’m not in the US.

  4. The Kindle Fire HD 8 can take up to a 400 GB microSDXC,
    so it’s miles ahead in my book (pun intended).

  5. It’s good that B&N has updated the Nook 7 with 16GB. My 2016 Nook 7 with 8GB and Android 6.0 has so little free space, I have to uninstall every single 3rd party app to do an update.

  6. What’s a good alternative specifically for the $50 7″ Amazon Fire/B&N Nook tablet for those not in the US/not in an Amazon country?

    1. I’d say the closest alternative I’ve seen is the Samsung Galaxy Tab A 7″ that you can get for around $100

    2. I love my Samsung Tab E 9.6 and have seen the 7″ as low as $70 in the states. Would that be an option for you?

      1. Kyle, Jerry,

        Which year’s model do you mean? This one? https://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/tablets/all-other-tablets/samsung-galaxy-tab-a-7-0-8gb-wi-fi-black-sm-t280nzkaxar/
        MSRP of $130, similar street price in Europe. That’s a different beast.

        The Nook and fire 7″ retail for $50 with street prices often lower, with regular discounts. At least for the Amazon fire for sure.

        I’m not looking for a resolution larger than 1024×600 (that’s perfectly fine for my video needs), but I want an IPS display. And Bluetooth. And not much else. Maybe something hackable (my other interest is just fooling around/hacking with a few very basic apps).

        To be honest I feel adventurous and would be curious which Chinese OEMs produce the Amazon and B&N tablets and buy tablets from them with their own branding directly from China/AliExpress. any tips? I’d like something usable for this price point. Just for the kick of it; why not?

          1. Oh. This one lacks the one premium feature the Amazon Fire and B&N Nook 7″ tablets have and I would find useful: an IPS display. Not to mention Android version 4 severely limits usability. Also it costs 100 euros locally.

    3. look to some of the carrier tablets that typically go cheap on ebay I got an 8″ tablet with a Snapdragon 615 for $60

      1. In which country do you have “carrier tablets?” The rest of the world pay for their gadgets and telecommunications services separately. Besides, how do I cut a 8″ tablet to 7″ size, which is exactly my size of these gadgets? 🙂

  7. I still have my Nook HD7 somewhere in a drawer or storage tub. The battery is completely shot now, but that was a great device for years because of its high resolution, build quality, low weight, and lack of cameras. And they were MicroSD expandable, back in the days when the higher-end Amazon tablets weren’t.

Comments are closed.