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Barnes & Noble stopped making its own Android tablets years ago, and has instead been partnering with third-party tablet makers like Samsung and Lenovo. So it’s unsurprising that the company’s newest tablet is the NOOK 9″ Lenovo Tablet, or that it looks pretty familiar.
That’s because it’s basically the same tablet as the Lenovo Tab M9 that first launched last year. The key differences? Barnes & Noble NOOK branding on the back and NOOK software pre-installed. B&N Premium members can also save 10% off the purchase price.
The tablet has a 9 inch, 1340 x 800 pixel LCD display with up to 400 nits brightness, a MediaTek Helio G80 processor (with two ARM Cortex-A75 CPU cores and six Cortex-A55 cores), 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, a microSD card reader (with support for cards up to 128GB), and a 5,100 mAh battery.
It’s very much a budget or mid-range tablet, but it should be a decent option for reading eBooks, digital comics, periodicals, or other content purchased from the NOOK store or beyond. And unlike a NOOK eReader with an E Ink display, you can also use the tablet for web surfing, watching videos, or playing games.
It also ships with Android 12 software and support for the Google Play Store, which could make it an attractive alternative to Amazon’s Fire HD 8 tablet, which ships with Amazon’s Android-based Fire OS software, but which needs a bit of hacking if you want to run apps from the Google Play Store, since Amazon’s tablets ship with the Amazon Appstore instead.
The tablet measures 215 x 137 x 8mm (8.5″ x 5.4″ x 0.3″) and weighs 344 grams (12.2 ounces).
Other features include a USB 2.0 Type-C port, a 5V/2A charger, support for WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.1, a 3.5mm audio jack, stereo speakers, an 8MP rear camera, and a 2MP front-facing camera. The NOOK 9″ Lenovo tablet also has a few software features designed for distraction-free reading including an “Immersive Reading Mode that adds ambient sounds” and support for switching between grayscale and full-color modes.
The NOOK 9″ Lenovo Tablet is up for pre-order for $150, and it’s expected to begin shipping in mid-May. Or if you don’t feel like waiting, you could pick up a Lenovo Tab M9 now and install the NOOK app on it. Lenovo is currently selling the tablet for $140, but it often goes on sale for as little as $100.
My opinion: say no! You are already starting out with an old processor, fair display of 1380, small battery, only wifi 5, low pixel front and rear cameras, fairly low storage of 64, And you can’t count on much updating from Lenovo. I say skip it until lenovo wakes up and makes a better product, and has better updating policies.
The other Lenovo G80 tablets don’t have a flashlight and don’t have tap haptics (for turning on the display). They also can’t (hardware of software) decode 2k or 4k video files. Other than that, G80 is a great for web browsing, Amazon Prime, Netflix and web streaming.
SOOO fed up with these 800p small tablets. FullHD or bust. Waiting for my ALLDOCUBE iPlay 50 mini pro, such a better deal than this.
nothing so convenient as bringing my tablet to the nearest ALLDOCUBE store for support!
I just ordered an ALLDOCUBE iPlay 50 mini pro too. My old Xiaomi tablet did fine for several years, so I think this new aliexpress special should be OK! Crossing fingers!
Good points!