The Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet 7 (8GB) was easy to use for a wide variety of functions. Movement from screen to screen using finger swipes was not always smooth, and to move app icons among screens. The onscreen keyboard may be used in "gesture" mode to type by swiping to each letter.
The rear-facing camera was only fair in performance. Photos can be displayed full height without interference from the navigation bar. When reading a book, turning from portrait to lanscape was sluggish. A voice-typing feature lets you dictate emails and text documents. You can sync and transfer files to and from a PC using USB. A built-in file manager app makes it easy to transfer files from a memory card. The memory card was more difficult than most to insert and remove.
The display quality was good overall. Colors were accurately reproduced, realistic, and natural-looking. The screen was quite dim for a tablet and readability in daylight was poor. Viewing angle was quite wide in landscape orientation, making it easy to view photos or video with another person. Viewing angle was quite wide in portrait orientation, making it easy to share the screen with another person.
Touch response was very good. The capacitive touchscreen responds to a light finger touch, and allows multiple fingers to perform gesture actions. Positioning objects is less precise than with most tablets. Icons were easy to move and place precisely.
This tablet has some useful features - see the "About" section for more details. There is full access to the Google Play app market, with a large and varied selection of apps. There is also access to a large media market through Google Play, for downloading movies, music and books.
There are a variety of sensors to provide positional and environmental info to apps and games. These include, and an accelerometer to give motion feedback to apps.
This tablet ranks high in portability among tablets in the 7- to 8-inch category. Its battery life of 7.9 hours is meager for a tablet. It's compact for its screen size, and at 0.55 pounds, it's a very lightweight tablet for its size.
