Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 4 Nook Cannot Save Barnes & Noble‏

Barnes & Noble decided to drop first party manufacturing duties last year, after sales of the Nook e-reader and tablet line started to dwindle. Samsung has become the manufacturer for the Nook series, and the Galaxy Tab 4 Nook is the first partnered device.

 Samsung is a huge name in the smartphone line, Microsoft has been trying to get the South Korean manufacturer back onto Windows Phone and it looks like Barnes & Noble struck some sort of deal.

The problem is if Samsung doesn’t have a good incentive to make the device, it normally comes out looking bad. Look at the last three attempts at a high-end Windows Phone or Windows is general, Samsung is lagging behind other competitors, because revenue is lower than Android.

It looks like Samsung had this idea when building the Galaxy Tab 4 Nook. The color tablet removes most of the tablet functionality the Galaxy Tab 4 had and leaves the user with a low resolution, mediocre designed tablet with the Nook brand name.

The Galaxy Tab 4 Nook is not unique in any way, it looks and feels exactly the same as most in the Galaxy Tab line. It shows Samsung’s one way design for all of their tablets, something Barnes & Noble should have took note of before partnering.

Samsung might be able to sell a few hundred thousand units more than Barnes & Noble was able to sell with the Nook brand, but it will not be enough to revive the failing hardware business, nor will it be enough to bump Amazon’s Kindle range from the top spot.

Tablets are eating away at the e-reader market every year. Amazon, the biggest supplier of e-readers, has started to put a lot more focus on their Kindle Fire tablets for this reason. Barnes & Noble need to make a focus on the Apps and content, not books.