It's finally time for the full review!
Specs
This tablet is running Android 8.1 Oreo with a Security Patch as of August 5th, 2018. It's rocking a pretty low powered chip, the MediaTek MT8167A. That's a quad core ARM Cortex-A35 running at a maximum of 1.5GHz. The on board GPU is a PowerVR GE8300. This system on a chip is paired with 2GB of RAM, but what speed or spec I'm not sure of yet. The on board storage is 32GB, with 25.3GB free on first boot. The screen is a 10.1" IPS LCD with a resolution of 1920x1200. WiFi is a healthy 802.11 a/b/g/n and ac dual band, so both 2.4 and 5GHz support. The Bluetooth is 4.1 and it does support low energy. The tablet has two cameras, both 1.9MP. The front camera can shoot video at a maximum of 480p and the rear camera can do 720p. There are two speakers that play in stereo on the bottom or right of the tablet, depending on how you hold it. The battery is listed as 6,300 mAh.OS: Android 8.1 Oreo (Oct 5, 2018 Security Patch)SoC: MediaTek MT8167ACPU: Quad Core ARM Cortex-A35 @ 1.5GHzGPU: PowerVR Rogue GE8300RAM: 2GBStorage: 32GB (25.3GB available)Screen: 10.1" 1920x1200 IPS LCDWiFi: 802.11a/b/g/n/ac dual bandBT: 4.1 LECameras: 1.9MP Front Facing (max video 480p) and 1.9MP Rear Facing Camera (max video 720p)Speakers: Stereo (down firing in portrait, right firing in landscape)Battery: 6300mAhIn the Box: Nook Tablet 10.1", 5V/2A Charger, MicroUSB cable, paperwork
Build Quality
This tablet feels excellent in my hands. No fancy aluminum frames, glass backs, or exotic materials here. Just some nice feeling soft touch plastic, in a nice blue might I add, with some gentle rounded edges. The soft touch back does seem to reject fingerprints pretty well, but it is showing some of what looks like scuffing from sliding around on my desks. I haven't been very rough on this thing at all either, so only time will tell how this finish will hold up. The buttons have nice a nice tactile click to them, and the power button has a ridged texture.The screen is the only place it's let down here. I'm not talking about the resolution, or brightness or anything, I'll get to those in a minute. I'm talking about how it feels. It feels, ahhhh, a tad flimsy, if that gets the message across. And no Gorilla glass or Dragontail here, this will definitely scratch if you're too rough. It also has quite a large air gap between the LCD panel and the glass, which makes it look a bit cheap. Overall though, the tablet has a nice feeling in my hands. It's not so heavy that it's annoying, and not too light so that it feels like a toy.Ports and Buttons
Now onto the ports and buttons. Again, in portrait mode, along the right is the power button and volume rocker. On the left are the pogo pins for the charging dock and keyboard cover, along with two holes for alignment with the dock and cover. On the bottom you'll find the two stereo speakers. On the top there is a 3.5mm headphone jack, microUSB input, a microphone, and an inconspicuous microSD card slot that I actually missed in my unboxing! The front of the tablet has the 1.9 MP front facing camera as well as the ambient light sensor. And finally on the back there's the 1.9MP rear camera along with that cool subtle little Nook logo.Screen
The screen. Let's start with the resolution. 1920 x 1200 on a 10.1" IPS panel. Okay, not bad. Decent brightness range and an ambient light sensor? Getting better... Glossy. Like, suuuper glossy. With enough lights on, and the screen off, I can use this thing to check if my beard needs a trim (it does, by the way). That's to be expected at this price though, right? Most tablets are glossy. At least my reflection is good quality. Also, there's a pretty large air gap. That's when you can see the edge of the LCD panel underneath the glass. So if you're looking from an angle, you may not be pressing where you think you are. It also makes the reflectivity of the screen (while it's on) a bit worse because light can reflect around inside that gap. Thankfully, this screen is bright enough to overcome that effect, because I can use this outdoors. Well... not in direct sunlight, but on a sunny day shouldn't be a problem with the brightness cranked up. For the price, I can't complain any more about this screen. It looks good, gets decently bright (and dims pretty well too), and it serves its purpose on this budget tablet.Speakers
So you've got a nice big bright screen, how about some movies? Well. We'll get to how it fairs with those later, but sound is pretty important for movies, right? Unfortunately, you won't be filling any rooms with dance music, or feeling the explosions from the latest Marvel flicks with these stereo speakers. Honestly I was expecting more here, considering that the "stereo speakers" were in the specs on the box! Granted, they were pretty low on the specs on the box, but still. They're pretty weak. The volume seems comparable to other devices I use on a regular basis, but the sound is very tinny and hollow. Even my Blu Vivo XI, that's a 5.9" smartphone, sounds massively better. Maximum volume also seems to induce some buzzing in the chassis, making it not a pleasant experience. If you're thinking about just lowering it, the volume drops off quite sharply as the slider moves down. These speakers were a pretty big disappointment for me. I'll still use this device for some Netflix or YouTube, and I'll probably have a passable experience.Gaming
So a good, if not great screen, mediocre speakers, and a 10.1" form factor... this thing can't be good for games can it? Well, I'd say it depends on what you're trying to play. If you're like me, and you play mostly casual time wasters here and there, I think you'll be alright. If you're expecting to run Asphalt 9, PUBG, or Fortnite, I'd skip this one. Casual games like Mars: Mars, Alto's Adventure, Endless Runners like Minion Rush, and Puzzle games seem to work ok. Strangely as well, I was able to play GTA 3, GTA Vice City, and Asphalt 8 pretty enjoyably on this tablet at low settings. Hearthstone seems to run a bit choppy, but definitely playable. After a a while playing, the back left (in landscape) does warm up a little, but nothing uncomfortable to hold. Also, as is common on many devices, holding the tablet in landscape mode you do end up blocking one of the speakers. I have another video of me playing various games on this Nook if you'd like to see some more specifics about the gaming performance. Overall, not bad for the specs and price.Reading
So after testing what this tablet definitely isn't designed to do, let's get down to what it was designed for: reading. It should come as no surprise then that this tablet excels at it. It's large, crisp, bright screen make losing hours in a book a downright pleasure. Same for comics, magazines, and even recipe books. The tablet isn’t very heavy, so holding it for extended periods doesn’t strain the wrists.Browsing
Browsing on this device is kind of a mixed bag. The low powered chipset in this tablet struggles when rendering heavy web pages. I did a more in depth look at the browsing performance versus this tablet’s main competitor if you want to check that out. For casual browsing, like news sites, reddit, social media, the tablet is just ok. It’s usable. I even use this device frequently for sofa surfing. Heavy websites like ad riddled blogs and forums tend to really slow the device down, sometimes to the point of just not responding at all. Keep your expectations low, and don’t be afraid of killing tabs, and it’s a passable experience.Media Playback
Here’s another job this tablet seems like it was designed for. The bright, crisp screen and stereo speakers paired up with the charging dock accessory make this a great device for consuming media. YouTube playback is smooth all the way up to 1080p, but Netflix and other streaming services that rely on DRM won’t even be able to hit 1080p. The tablet only supports Google Widevine Level 3, restricting playback of services that rely on this DRM to standard definition, or 480p. This is very disappointing, as this screen really is nice to look at, especially when the brightness is up high. Hopefully Barnes and Noble can patch this in the future. Other than that, media playback is what you’d expect on a large screen device, if you can excuse the poor speakers.Multitasking
Since this NOOK Tablet 10.1” is running Android 8.1 Oreo, it can technically do side by side multitasking and video picture in picture. It definitely has the resolution and the RAM to support this, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Video playback like with YouTube or Netflix in picture in picture mode drags down the performance massively to the point where the device is often unresponsive on even simple pages. If you do intend to use this feature with YouTube, I have noticed that lowering the playback resolution to 360p seems to help a ton. With Netflix however, you can’t pick the playback quality, so it’s just a bad experience. In side by side multitasking, it’s heavily dependent on what you’re trying to do. Unfortunately the NOOK app doesn’t allow app multitasking, but I was able to test the Kindle app side by side with a few other apps. I even pulled up a YouTube video alongside a book in the Kindle app. Overall though, it’s not a great experience. It’s really struggles to switch between apps, and even the task switcher starts to slow down. It’s possible, but I wouldn’t advise it unless you’ve got a very simple use case.WiFi
The WiFi and Bluetooth are pretty standard. The dual band AC here is a nice touch, especially for such a low priced device. It has no trouble establishing a connection with my router and staying connected even when I move around my house. It switches between the nodes on my mesh WiFi seamlessly and seems to have pretty good range. The speeds seem comparable to the other tablets and phones I have around for testing. 3 feet from my main router, on a fresh disconnect and reconnect, the NOOK get’s about 30Mbps on Netflix’s fast test. That’s about what my other similar devices get, while my dual band AC laptops get between 50 and 100Mbps. My internet speeds are rated at 200Mbps, and I usually get 200 to 220Mbps all day using ethernet from the main router.Bluetooth
The Bluetooth 4.1 seems to be reliable enough. I haven’t had any issues connecting to any devices or keeping a connection. I was able to game for over an hour using my Moga Power bluetooth controller with no problem. Same for bluetooth headphones and connected speakers. Even simultaneously connecting the controller and headphones was not an issue.Camera
The cameras on this tablet are what you’d expect on any tablet. They’re pretty bad. 1.9 megapixels just isn’t enough to capture any kind of real detail. The rear facing camera has no flash, and seems to really struggle in low light situations. Even in my brightly lit office where I’m filming, the shots seem to always have a ton of noise like it’s cranking the ISO way up. For a quick video chat, the front facing camera is just passable. It suffers from the same low light performance as the rear shooter. I wasn’t expecting much here, so I really wasn’t disappointed. Here are a few samples.Battery Life
Battery life is fairly impressive. Thanks to the low powered A35 chipset, this large tablet can really stretch its equally large battery. In mixed use testing, I can get between 6 and 9 hours. That’s with the brightness set to half with auto dimming enabled, and doing usually tablet things: browsing the web for more stuff to review, watching YouTube videos, jumping into a game or two, and watching some Netflix while I’m cooking. Switch this tablet up for strictly reading duty by lowering the brightness and turning off some automatic syncing and you can extend that battery life to 12 hours or more. That is, if you can manage to read for 12 hours straight. Stand by battery life isn’t great, it seems to lose about 20 to 30% of battery per day just sitting idle. The charging dock comes in handy here though. I just drop it in the dock when I’m done with it and it’s always ready to go when I am.UI and Barnes and Noble Customization
The UI here is nearly stock Android 8.1 Oreo. The app drawer at the bottom is the same, except with a few Barnes and Noble app shortcuts by default. You can very easily replace this with a simple drag and drop. The home screen has a few Barnes and Noble NOOK app widgets by default, but those can be moved or even removed entirely. Again, just drag and drop. Otherwise the interface is completely stock Android, and that’s very nice to see. The Google Play store is even on the home screen when you first turn the tablet on. Definitely a massive plus for this tablet versus other...similarly priced and sized alternatives.Accessories
The accessories available for this tablet were pretty good at launch. I picked up the Smart Folio slim cover, the Smart Folio with Keyboard cover, and the charging dock I mentioned earlier. The Smart Folio slim cover is great if you’re looking for some protection for the pretty high 30 dollar price. It covers the corners, back, and screen, and turns the tablet on when the cover is opened. It’s good quality, but hopefully some third party lower priced alternatives will pop up soon. The keyboard cover feels very good in the hand, and adds a good amount of heft to the overall package, but it seems to provide little value. It offers the same protection, and adds a good bit or utility. It acts as a stand for the tablet, and obviously provides a simple to use small keyboard. If You’re planning to type a lot on this tablet, you can’t go wrong. It’s a bit pricey though at 40 dollars. That’s nearly a third of the cost of the tablet. The charging dock, with its 35 dollar price tag, I think, is worth every penny. The tablet doesn’t have any show mode when docked or any cool features like that. But it’s sturdy, slim, attractive, and gives you a way to prop the tablet up without any cumbersome folding covers or stands. And it charges the device. I use this dock constantly. If the tablet isn’t in my hands, it’s in the dock. I even use it on my desk to read these scripts while I’m recording as well as to watch Netflix or YouTube all over the house.Verdict
Pros
- low 130 dollar price tag
- crisp high resolution screen
- decent amount of RAM
- great battery life
- quality feel
- Google Play out of the box
Cons
- slow chipset
- mediocre speakers
Summary and Who is This For
Overall this NOOK Tablet 10.1” is a fantastic value for a casual user. If you’re planning on reading a lot, and doing a few other things between reading, this device is probably perfect for you. This tablet may also do well if you’re just planning on some light social media or even some light media consumption with a few casual games thrown in. However, if you consider yourself a power user or a gamer, I’d steer clear. Otherwise, get ready to wait a lot and to get very friendly with the “clear all” button on the app switcher. For instance, I’m a very patient power user. I’m used to buying and testing lower powered hardware, because I’m always hunting for value. This tablet can frustrate me from time to time, and I often find myself just picking up my phone to do things even while I’m holding the tablet. However, I can’t argue with the value it provides. It’s a jack of all trades. It “can” do a lot of things, but it doesn’t do any of them particularly well. Except perhaps reading. This NOOK Tablet 10.1” is great for reading books, magazines, and even technical documents. But that really shouldn’t surprise anyone coming from a book store. This tablet has a niche, and it fills it well. Just don’t pull it out of that niche and expect miracles. Keep your expectations low, and this device is a great value at the 130 dollar price tag.Buy
Barnes and Noble NOOK Tablet 10.1"Price: $129.99
Buy one directly from Barnes and Noble:
Smart Folio Cover
Price: $29.95
Buy one for yourself directly from Barnes and Noble:
Smart Folio Cover with Keyboard
Price: $39.95
Buy one for yourself directly from Barnes and Noble:
NOOK Tablet 10.1" Charging Dock
Price: $34.95
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