Review of the Barnes and Noble NOOK 9 Lenovo Tablet (2024)

Barnes and Noble have released their first new tablet in several years. The NOOK Tablet 9 is their second device, made with Lenovo. This tablet is perfect for US residents who already do business with the bookseller since all prior purchases made in their apps, e-readers or tablets will automatically be synced to this new model. This provides more value than all of the Fire Tablets since it has Dolby Audio and full access to the Google Play Store. Amazon has its app store, but it is severely lacking and doesn’t have apps that compete with its core services.

What are the major selling points of Lenovo’s NOOK Tablet 9? It has a large 9-inch display, dual speakers, Dolby Audio, Grayscale, Chromatic & Immersive reading modes, TÜV Rhineland-certified eye protection, Android 13,
The Barnes and Noble Nook Tablet 9 features a 9-inch IPS LCD with a 1340 x 800 and 173 PPI resolution. It has a 5:3 aspect ratio and brightness of around 400 nits. Being an LCD tablet, it has brightness controls which can be changed with slider bars. Being an LCD tablet, it has brightness controls which can be altered with slider bars. It has an anti-fingerprint touchscreen display and is TÜV Rheinland-certified for low blue light. I like the Grayscale Reading mode for B&AMP and the Chromatic Reading mode for colour content.

Underneath the hood is a Mediatek MT6769V/CU Helio G80 Octa-core (2×2.0 GHz Cortex-A75 & 6×1.8 GHz Cortex-A55) processor, 4GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage. If you need more space, an SD card can have 128GB. There is dual-band WIFI, USB-C, headphone/mic combo, dual stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos and Bluetooth 5.1 for wireless headphones or earbuds. It is powered by a 5,100 mAh battery, which should be suitable for a few days of nonstop use. There are dual cameras: the front snapper is 2MP, and the rear is 8MP.

From the design perspective, this tablet looks like most other tablets on the market. It has a black piano on the front, light grey on the back, and a glass screen. There are no distinctive industrial design choices. However, you can buy a coloured case to at least add a bit of a personal touch.

Software

The Tablet 9 features the Google Android 13 operating system and has full access to the Google Play Store for free and paid apps. However, customers will find over 4.5 million eBooks, magazines, newspapers, manga, and more on the pre-loaded NOOK app. Moreover, all B&N Premium Members will receive a 10% discount on the retail value of $149.99 and all other NOOK tablets, e-readers and accessories. B& N Premium and Rewards Members will also earn stamps on eBook and digital audiobook purchases from bn.com.

The Home Screen has several apps right out of the box. The quintessential Nook app is where you will do all your reading and purchase your digital content. The NOOK HUB is a place that lists the version number of the main NOOK app and the NOOK Hub. It lists the Android version that the device is running and the serial number. There is a folder with all the core Google apps, such as Google, Gmail, Maps, YouTube, Drive, Google TV, etc. A quick drawer of apps on the bottom of the screen has Google Play, Chrome and Messaging. All apps function, and there are a ton of other core Google apps, such as Google Books. You might want to uninstall the stuff you would never use to keep the tablet clean.

If you swipe downward from the top of the screen, this is your quick settings menu. You can establish a system-wide dark mode, pair Bluetooth accessories such as earbuds or headphones, turn on reading mode, take a screenshot, record what is on the screen, and do other things. There is also a slider bar to control the brightness of the screen.

Lenovo Vantage is also front and centre. This is where you can update the system software with new security updates and hopefully new versions of Android. This is only running Android 13, and Android 14 is in a lot of hardware now. You can view your tablet usage time, read the user guide and other minor things such as your warranty.

Reading

The NOOK app is where you are likely going to do the vast majority of your reading. A UI on the bottom of the screen, EBOOKS, will pull up the B&N bookstore and allow you to browse for books, comics, magazines, manga, and newspapers. You can download a free sample, read the description, view star ratings and read user reviews. Audiobooks are right beside ebooks. This will take you to the audiobook section of the store, which has a different editorial team than the ebook category, so both sections are unique and don’t mirror each other with content. You can view the book you are reading and the account section, where you can log in to your B&N account or look at your details.

The default view of the Nook App is all of the stuff you have on your NOOK. This includes magazines, audiobooks, ebooks and whatever else you have bought or will buy in the future. At the top, you can make shelves and view certain content on your main library page, such as ebooks or audiobooks.

A 9-inch screen is perfect for magazines purchased from the Barnes and Noble Store. It has a nice page-curl feature, where you can do animated page-turns and view what is on the next page before you are on the next page. There are options to view every page of the entire magazine, which provides an easy way to jump around to different sections. The magazines are optimized for the tablet; they are full-screen with little to no borders. Article View is an excellent option; it will strip away all of the custom designs and display the lead in the image, mainly just the text. This is what I always use since it is easier to read.

The NOOK app is the same experience if you have ever used it for Android or iOS. The text looks good, fills the screen, and has excellent page-turn animations that function well. There are different settings to change the background to make it easy for the eyes, such as dark mode reading mode, which makes the screen less white and makes the text pop more. Book highlights are available, as well as dictionary lookups and augmenting things such as line spacing or margins.

However, you are not locked into using the NOOK app exclusively. Google Books is preinstalled, and you can easily download Kindle, Libby, Kobo, dedicated magazine or manga apps, Audible if you are already a customer, and tons more.

Wrap Up

The Barnes & Noble Nook Lenovo tablet is, at its core, a Lenovo M9 tablet, but it runs Android 13 instead of Android 12. But with the Barnes & Noble, you get a few differences. Here they are.
Two pre-installed applications: Nook hub: A collection of Barnes & Noble support applications and customer service, etc; this application also fetches pertinent information if anything needs to be brought to the user’s attention< Nook app: This is the leading app where your store is located, including audiobooks, ebooks, magazines, editorials, and the like. This is the main application utilized to get content. The only other difference is a Barnes & Noble logo on the back of the unit. Besides that, this is a Lenovo device through and through, so let’s talk about it. READING is decent but a little harsh on the eyes, using a pretty cheap screen. Still, they have some reading mode toggles that adjust parameters in the background to limit colours or turn off colours altogether.>SOUND is incredible, filling the room with sound with its twin speakers, symmetrically opposing each other when held in landscape view. Even though this has a 3.5 mil headphone jack, there seems to be no reason for external speakers on this device.

MAGAZINES are high quality, colourful, crisp, and straightforward. There are no gripes. LCD tablets refresh faster than the eye can pick up, so this unit is ready for whatever it needs to tackle.

BUILD is a bit of a mixed bag. The front is as cookie cutter as it comes black on black on black on black, glass screen. The back, however, is gorgeous, featuring a triangle gradient gunmetal pattern, beautiful lines and a dual collaboration company logo. There’s also an excellent camera bump-up top and an SD card door.