Recently, Samsung collaborated once again with Barnes and Noble’s Nook interface to produce another tablet: the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2. Both the hardware and software included with the tablet are superb, but the merit of the Samsung Galaxy S2 as a standalone tablet is a topic for another day. Instead, the list below will look at ten reasons why the inclusion of Nook’s interface and the partnership with Barnes and Noble really help this tablet stand out.
- B&N Browsing – Barnes and Noble allows users of their tablets to access their stores’ books for free whenever the user is inside one of their over 1300 locations. This basically recreates the experience of being able to browse through a bookstore, but you can do it all from one of the comfy chairs located inside the in-store cafes. By taking advantage of this fact, you will be able to find the perfect reads as quickly and comfortably as possible. Also while users are in Barnes and Noble locations, they are able to access unlimited free Wi-Fi.
- Free Content – You also receive a huge amount of content free of charge when you purchase the Nook tablet. You instantly gain ownership to three books, for example, and you get three free magazines as well. Those things alone have a value easily in excess of $50, considering what physical reading materials sell for these days, but B&N also throws in an additional $5 Nook store credit for Nook S2 owners to use on whatever they want.
- Sampling On-the-Go – Not only do you get lots of full books and magazines with your initial purchase, but you get partial access to the vast B&N collection of books throughout the lifetime of your tablet. That means you will never find yourself without a book to read. Using any Internet connection in the world, you can search for sample books until you find one you think looks interesting, and then buy it wirelessly and have it instantly delivered.
- In-Store Support – We’re not going to take names here, but there is a certain very popular tablet manufacturer whose ability to sell their products for top-dollar is almost purely predicated on their extremely accessible in-store support. Nook is adding that same huge in-store support to the Nook S2 by offering free inspections and repairs in all Barnes and Noble stores! Tablet experts will always be kept at hand to provide you with any specialized assistance you may need.
- Microsoft Office – Barnes and Noble wanted to make sure that if people were going to be using a tablet the company was involved with making, those users could become marvels of productivity. For this reason, a full suite of Microsoft office is pre-installed on all Nook edition Samsung Galaxy S2s.
- Making the Cheap Cheaper – Because of the partnership, Barnes and Noble members save even more when buying the tablet. The S2 tab is already very cheap compared to other flagship tablets – the iPad Pro, for instance, starts at $799 while the S2 is only $399. With the B&N discount, however, members get an additional 10 percent off, bringing the price down to $359.
- Easy Reading – Representatives from Barnes and Noble worked closely with Samsung during the Galaxy S2’s design, and they made sure the tablet is perfectly optimized for reading. The screen dimensions are more suitable for reading that for watching videos, as is not the case with most other tablets, and the fact that the S2 is the thinnest and lightest tablet ever made ensures that you will be able to hold it for hours on end as you read without tiring out your arms.
- A Virtually Infinite Library – One of the coolest things about eReading devices is their ability to carry around an entire library’s worth of books at once. Nook representatives know this, and they made sure that function was maximized on the Samsung Galaxy S2. The result was the S2’s capability to hold an unprecedented 160GB of data (32GB internal storage plus up to 128GB Micro SD storage). That’s about 320 thousand novels of 500 pages, enough to keep you reading new material for quite a while.
The newly released Nook Samsung Galaxy S2 tablet is very interesting in that it, in a way, takes the tablet back to basics. That is, tablet manufacturers have, of late, fallen into a trend of trying to make tablets over-complicated laptop replacements, when tablets were initially meant for simpler purposes, such as eReading. That is not to say that the S2 is not a powerful and user-friendly tablet in its own right, but it is commendable how Nook helped Samsung to make accessing simple content, like books, magazines and news sites, more accessible.