Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK For Dummies E-Book

Corey Sandler

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 309

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Your guide to the new Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK

Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK For Dummies provides you with all the information you need to get the most out of your NOOK tablet. You'll quickly get up to speed on the basics, like using the touchscreen technology, setting up wireless access, and performing software updates. Then you'll get introduced to the fun stuff: downloading and shopping for e-books, using the built-in web browser, streaming videos from Netflix, Hulu, and other sources, and creating cool slideshows of photos from your digital camera. If that's not enough to pique your interest, you'll find out how to use the Android-based applications that come with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK, interact with the device using the built-in microphone, create your own e-books, archive your e-books, and so much more!

Bringing together the absolute best of two worlds, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook is a co-branded e-reader tablet produced by Samsung and Barnes & Noble. By teaming up with a thriving hardware brand, the creators of the NOOK have been able to focus on developing a more competitive device, giving you a better-performing and sleeker user-experience. With the help of this book, you'll get expert guidance on discovering everything this cool new tablet has to offer.

• Four-color design brings the information to life
• Offers clear instruction on navigating the touchscreen, browsing the web, and staying connected with email
• Covers the latest books, apps, magazines, and more
• Provides step-by-step guidance on streaming video, playing music, and reading e-books

If you've just purchased this awesome new device and want to find out everything it can do for you, you'll find Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK For Dummies out of this world.

Leseprobe

Samsung Galaxy Tab® 4 NOOK® For Dummies®

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Trademarks: Wiley, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, Dummies.com, Making Everything Easier, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and may not be used without written permission. Samsung Galaxy Tab is a registered trademark of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. NOOK is a registered trademark of Barnesandnoble.com, LLC. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ.

For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax [phone]. For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport.

Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014948514

ISBN 978-1-119-00834-7 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-00836-1 (ePub); ISBN 978-1-119-00835-4 (ePDF)

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Samsung Galaxy Tab® 4 NOOK® For Dummies®

Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/samsunggalaxytab4nook to view this book's cheat sheet.

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Foolish Assumptions

Icons Used in This Book

Beyond the Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Getting Started with Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK

Chapter 1: The First NOOK in the Galaxy

Cozying Up to Your NOOK

Charging the Battery

Inspecting the Gadget

The front

The left side

The right side

The top side

The bottom

The back

Turning On, Turning Off, Going to Sleep

Powering on

Powering off

Going to sleep

Setting the sleep timeout

Jetting into Airplane Mode

Putting More on a microSD Card

Installing a microSDHC card

Mounting a microSDHC card

Unmounting and ejecting a microSDHC card

Formatting a microSDHC card

Chapter 2: Laying Hands on the Screen

Keying In on the Basics

Gesturing at Your Touchscreen

Starting at Home Base

Wallpapering your Home screen

Crawl space: Bottom of the Home screen

One step up from the bottom: Shortcuts

Midscreen: A word from our sponsors

The Google search bar

The notification bar and panel

The status bar

Grabbing a Quick Menu

Flying the Tab 4 NOOK Wayback Machine

Opening Lots of Windows

Chapter 3: Typing by Tapping, Talking, Swiping

Finding the Keyboard to the Kingdom

Adjusting the Keyboard

Input Languages

Smart Typing

Keyboard Swipe

Key-Tap Feedback

Changing Keyboard Input

Moving the keyboard

Improving your penmanship

Talking it out

Chapter 4: Getting Set to Go

Being a First Timer

Setting up a Google account

The first sign-on

Firing Up the Wi-Fi

Four links in the Wi-Fi chain

Hunting for Wi-Fi

Enabling Wi-Fi on the tablet

Adding a Wi-Fi network manually

Switching Wi-Fi systems

Reconnecting to a Wi-Fi system after setup

Signing Up for Accounts and Other Preliminaries

Click here; read the fine print later

It’s a Google world after all

Signing up for a NOOK account

Who knows where the time goes?

Locking Things Down

Preparing the tablet for lockdown

Changing the lock

Customizing your unlock scheme

Encrypting Your Data

Encrypting

Decrypting

Doing First Things Last: Accessibility Options

Accessibility

Services

Vision

Hearing

Dexterity

Interaction Control

Part II: Communicating Across the Galaxy

Chapter 5: Making Further Connections

Working without a Wire

Advanced Wi-Fi settings

Wi-Fi Direct

King Bluetooth Lives

Understanding Bluetooth

Bluetooth limitations

Getting Physical: USB and Memory Cards

Making the USB connection

It’s in the cards

Sending Air Mail

Sending yourself email

Using the cloud

Chapter 6: Putting in Your Contacts

Roaming Friends and Countrymen

Everything but the Kitchen Sync

Creating a contact by hand

Importing contacts from a computer

Importing contacts through Gmail

Grouping and Degrouping Contacts

Cooking up multiple group contacts

The fifth Beatle: Removing group members

Renaming a group

Deleting a group

Playing Favorites with Contacts

Marking a contact as a favorite

Viewing contacts marked as favorites

Removing a favorite from a contact

Managing Your Contacts

Changing the order

Editing or deleting a contact

Sending Email from Your Contacts

Linking Duplicate Contacts

Chapter 7: We’ve All Got Email

Hey Mister Postman

Writing Home about the Email App

Setting up an email account, automatic style

Setting up an email account, manual style

Customizing Your General Email Settings

Display options

Composing and sending options

Customizing settings for specific accounts

Open It Up!

Starting an Email from Other Apps

Getting Attached

Chapter 8: Using the Galaxy to Go World Wide (Web)

Looking from the NOOK

Speaking Your Mind with Voice Search

Using a Search Engine Other Than Chrome

Skipping the Browser to Search the Web

Sharing Is Caring

Signing in to Chrome

Protecting Your Privacy

Being a revisionist: Clearing your history

Delving deeper into privacy settings

Adjusting content settings

Going incognito in Chrome

Customizing Chrome Sync settings

Encrypting your Google account data

Turning on bandwidth management

Preloading web pages

Leaving Bread Crumbs: Bookmarking

Editing or deleting a bookmark

Adding a web page to your Home screen

Popping open multiple browser tabs

Part III: Reading Electronics

Chapter 9: Looking into the NOOK Library

Rooting Around in Your NOOK Store

Finding a specific book

Buying a book

Buying magazines or newspapers

Subscribing to catalogs

Paying the bill

Archiving to the NOOK cloud

Archiving an item to the NOOK cloud

Performing a sync or refresh

Can I Borrow That?

Being Your Own Librarian

Reading covers

Building your own shelves

Opening and Reading an eBook

Turning the pages

Jumping to a page

Using tricky navigation

Using reading tools

Dog-earing a page

Designing Your Own eBook

Reading Brainy or Trashy: Flipping Through a Magazine

Page view

Article view

Smell of the Ink: Reading a Newspaper

Getting Kids into the Act: Picture Books

Kids’ books are special

Choosing a reading style

Geeking Out about NOOK Comic Books

Chapter 10: Finding Other eBook Sources

Snooping around the Google Play Store

Taking the Kindle Store for a Spin

Going in to OverDrive at the Library

Part IV: Throwing in the Kitchen Sink: Camera, Video, and Music

Chapter 11: Snapping Pictures

Putting Down a Book to Take a Picture

Taking a Camera Tour

Tap-Clicking with a Tablet

Zooming in for a Close-up

Changing the Resolution

Setting Up Picture Preferences

Choosing camera modes and filters

Customizing filenames and storage

Making Movies

Recording video

Zooming in or out

Chapter 12: Getting into the Gallery

Visiting Your Picture Gallery

Viewing images

Zooming in or out

Deleting images

Putting All Your Pictures in One Basket

Sorting Your Pictures

Tagging Your Buddies

Turning on Tag Buddy

Tagging photos in the Gallery

Putting Your Images to Work

Sharing Your Images

Shearing Before Sharing: Trimming a Video

Chapter 13: Singing and Dancing in the Galaxy

Starting with the Hardware

Speaking of Which . . .

Jamming Out on Your Tab 4 NOOK

Choosing what tabs to see

Pressing Play

Deleting a song

Creating (smart) playlists

Making the Music Player all Yours

Showing Your Own Movies

Loading a video

Managing your videos

Part V: The Part of Tens

Chapter 14: Ten Apps to Take Advantage Of

An Alarming Prospect

Planning Your Day with the Calendar

Get Offa My Clouds

Checking Your Latitude

Have the Tuna Eat the Mayo: Taking a Memo

Popcorn, Soda Pop, and Netflix

Editing Photos Without the Shop

Editing with the Photos app

Sharing and archiving

Talking to Your Tab 4 NOOK

My Tube or YouTube

Using Your Most Expensive Calculator

Chapter 15: Ten Steps to Maintaining the Galaxy

Treat the Battery with Respect

Protect the Charger, Too

Don’t Let the Galaxy Fall to Earth

Safeguard the Connector

Don’t Bring Your Own Beverage

Keep a Clean Screen

Don’t Point at the Display

Watch for the Misplaced Key

Clean Up the Memory

Back Up Your Data

Chapter 16: Ten Galaxy Tips and Tricks

Your Tab 4 NOOK Won’t Turn On

Your Tab 4 NOOK Won’t Turn Off

Your Tablet Is a Power Vampire

Extend Your Warranty

Find the Hidden Task Manager

Visit Android System Recovery

Troubleshoot Apps

Turning On Safe Mode

Turning Off Safe Mode

Troubleshooting apps

Do a Soft Reset

Go to Super-Secret Developer Mode

Perform a Factory Reset

About the Author

Cheat Sheet

More Dummies Products

Guide

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

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Introduction

Nearly everything you can do on a desktop or laptop computer can now be accomplished on a small, battery-operated handheld rectangle of plastic and glass. The best way to think of a tablet like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK is as a super-sized smartphone, without the cellular phone connection (and monthly bill).

The tablet isn’t the most advanced model on the market — many others have sharper screens or better cameras or other fancy doodads — but for its purpose as an eBook reader and a portal on the Internet — the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK is a very good option at a relatively low price.

About This Book

As good as the new NOOK tablet is, they have continued a long tradition in computer manufacturing: The skimpy little instruction manual that comes with it is laughably inadequate and the online booklet isn’t much better. Myself, I’m not complaining: I’ve made a nice living for a long time filling in the gaping blanks between. Herewith, then, the keys to the Galaxy.

You can read this book from front to back, if you wish. Or you can jump to a section that deals with whatever questions you have. Each of the parts deal with a particular task or function, and each chapter covers a specific topic.

My goal, as always, is to present news you can use and skip over as much unnecessary bafflegab as possible. When I feel it necessary to go a bit into technological detail, you’ll find those sections nicely fenced off; enter if you want, or keep the barn door latched. We’re in this together, and I’ve done my best to make the book easy to read and understand, and even entertaining in places.

The full name of the device we’re gathered to explore is the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK. It’s very much a member of the Samsung Galaxy Tab family, in its fourth generation. But that last word, NOOK, means that some important parts of the operating system and reading apps are different from its cousins.

I’ll call the tablet by its first name when it seems appropriate, and in other places I call it the Tab 4 NOOK. And in places where the hardware is not the issue, I might even just call it the NOOK or the tablet. We’ll see, together.

Like other books in the constantly expanding For Dummies universe, you’ll be directed to do things by numbered steps. Sometimes you’ll be advised to choose a menu item, and then to tap a command. It’s all quite touchy-feely, I promise.

Foolish Assumptions

The first and most important assumption I make for all of my books of this sort is this: You, dear reader, are an intelligent, capable, and curious person who wants to know how to use what seems at first glance to be a very complex technical device.

Put another way, you’re not looking to build a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK from spare parts recovered from your kitchen junk drawer, and you have no interest whatsoever in writing your own software to make the hardware sing and dance.

And the second assumption is this: You already own, or are seriously considering buying, a Tab 4 NOOK.

And because we’re more than halfway through the first decade of the tablet computer, I suspect that you have seen a tablet and probably made at least a few swipes at one. Because of this, I skip the “Isn’t it amazing?” part and get right to the point: They keep getting better and better.

I do believe that there are things that any reader would find interesting and helpful in this book, but to be fully honest about it, this book is pretty tightly focused on just that one model of tablet.

Although it isn’t essential, I also assume that you have your own desktop or laptop computer or have access to one. It doesn’t matter whether it be a Windows or Macintosh design. And I also have to assume that you have a Wi-Fi wireless computer network you can use at home or at work or in a public library or other place you can use; the Tab 4 NOOK needs a Wi-Fi connection to allow you to fill it with books and other media and to reach the Internet.

Another assumption is that you’ve heard this relatively new word many, many times: app. It is short for application, which is another word for a software program. On a desktop or laptop computer, software has become larger and more complex year by year. But in the reduced world of the tablet, there’s a different concept: small and specialized.

Icons Used in This Book

This icon is there to tell you when danger — or at least serious problems — lie ahead. If you don’t heed this information, you might damage your tablet or yourself or you might lose really important information.

This icon is there to remind you of something. This information tells you how to do something you’ll often need.

This icon tells you of useful tips and suggestions to get the most from your new tablet. This information might save you time or money. Or better — both.

You probably don’t need to know this stuff, but aren’t you a little bit curious? Go ahead, try a few. There are no pop quizzes in this book.

Beyond the Book

I’ve written a lot of extra content that you won’t find in this book. Links to the articles are on the parts pages. Go online to find the following:

Make a profile for each person who uses your tablet at

www.dummies.com/extras/samsunggalaxytabs

If you can’t automatically connect to an established email server, try Samsung’s recommendations at

www.dummies.com/extras/samsunggalaxytabs

Get the best pictures possible from the camera with help from

www.dummies.com/extras/samsunggalaxytabs

Take certain points into consideration before buying an app

www.dummies.com/extras/samsunggalaxytabs

Find out about ten fun or helpful — and free — apps at

www.dummies.com/extras/samsunggalaxytabs

The Cheat Sheet for this book is at

www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/samsunggalaxytabs

Here you’ll find instructions for taking a panoramic picture, finding images online, make a slide show, using SoundAlive, and replacing regular alarm sounds with a song.

Updates to this book, if we have any, are at

www.dummies.com/extras/samsunggalaxytabs

Where to Go from Here

You go from here to the first part and the sections that lie behind. You could start by reading the copyright and trademark page, or read the names of all of the fine people at Wiley who helped transform my keyboard taps into the book you are holding. But perhaps you’d like to save that for an epilogue. Go forth and explore Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK and the device itself; they’re meant for each other.

Part I

Getting Started with Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK

Visit www.dummies.com for more great Dummies content online.

In this part …

Explore the Tab 4 NOOK parts.Turn it on and set it up it for first use.Read about how to use the touchscreen.Tap and talk to the keyboard.

Chapter 1

The First NOOK in the Galaxy

In This Chapter

Figuring out how to turn it on and off

Going into Airplane Mode

Putting memory on a microSD card

You’ve got a small box that holds a thin, flat piece of plastic and circuitry that has more speed, more intelligence, and more magic than an entire field of mainframes. It can hold and display nearly all of the world’s books, magazines, and newspapers. It can sing, show videos, take pictures, make movies, determine its location from an orbiting satellite, connect to the Internet, and send and receive emails and messages.

Just about the only thing the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK lacks is a decent instruction manual. If I might be so bold, I’m here to help.

Cozying Up to Your NOOK

To download books (or anything else) or to browse the web with a Tab 4 NOOK, you need access to a Wi-Fi system with an active connection to the Internet. See Figure 1-1.

The small, unpretentious brown cardboard box is about the size of a thick paperback book (remember those?) There’s not all that much within: the Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK and some goodies beneath it:

A USB cable: This cable carries data to and from your tablet when you connect the tablet, via the USB cable, to a laptop or personal computer. The USB cable also lets you recharge the internal battery.A battery charger: When you’re ready, plug it into an AC wall socket and attach the larger connector of the USB cable to it. Then plug the smaller connector to the Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK. See Figure 1-2.

Photo courtesy of Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Figure 1-1:Wi-Fi signal strength, battery level, and time are in the upper right. The icon in the lower right displays apps.

Figure 1-2:The AC adapter plugs into a wall socket; the larger end of the USB cable attaches to the charger.

Two business-card-sized booklets. One is called the Health & Safety and Warranty Guide and it advises you not drop the tablet on your toe, and how if you do Samsung isn’t going to pay for the repair. The other booklet, all 20 pages of it (with about six blanks) is called the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK Quick Start Guide.

Keep the box, along with the warranty information and your receipt. If you need to return the tablet to the seller, send it in for service, or ship it to someone else, the original box is ready to serve and protect.

Sooner or later, you should remove the protective plastic sheet that sits atop the LCD screen. It works well to protect the device in transit, but it will interfere with your use of the touchscreen and collect dirt. Put it back in the box as a memento.

Nothing like Moses’s

What’s a tablet? Way back in ancient times, about 2007 or so, there were laptop computers and the first electronic reading devices, which were single-purpose handheld devices that used something called eInk to draw text on a nearly white background. A few years later the two devices came together in the first successful tablets, which were thin, flat multipurpose computers that used touchscreens instead of keyboards and memory chips instead of spinning hard drives to hold on to data. In 2010, Apple Computer jumped way out front of the pack with the first iPad, and everyone else—Samsung included—has been playing catchup ever since.

Charging the Battery

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK comes with a built-in (and non-removable) rechargeable battery. The battery probably still has some power in it from testing at the factory (mine arrived about half full), but please resist trying to use it immediately.

There are three reasons why you want to fully charge the battery before first use:

You want to be assured that the battery, the charger, and the tablet itself are each working properly.It may help the battery’s longevity. That is, if you properly condition it with a full charge before using it first. See Figure 1-3.

After the battery is fully charged for the first time, let it drain down to nearly empty, then recharge it fully; do this for the first three or four cycles.

When you first turn on the tablet, you have to register the device with all of its various parts makers. You have to sign in to a Wi-Fi system with an active Internet connection and sign in with Samsung, Google, a few apps makers, and Barnes & Noble; be sure to install any software updates.

Figure 1-3: The tablet beeps and warns you when the battery level drops to 15 percent. Don’t let it drain to 0.

And so, here’s how to give your tablet its first full charge:

Attach the larger end of the USB cable to the charger.

Pay attention to the black positioning bar inside the charger and its corresponding bar inside the cable. Don’t force the two positioning bars against each other; the cable only fits one way.

Attach the USB cable to the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK.

The smaller connector on the cable connects to the port on the bottom of the tablet. The side of the cable end that has the three-forked USB symbol will be facing you as you’re looking at the front of the tablet. Again, don’t force the plug in the wrong way. See Figure 1-4.

Plug the charger into a wall outlet. Go for a walk, mow the lawn, read a book, bake a cake. For the first three or four times you use your tablet, I recommend draining the battery to near-empty and then fully recharging it.

Figure 1-4: The smaller end of the USB cable plugs into the bottom of tablet.

When you plug the charger into a powered-off tablet, the screen will briefly show a battery-like object. You can see roughly how full (or empty) the device is. The drawing disappears after about 15 seconds, and after that there’s no way to know the device is being charged: no indicator lights. You’ll just have to school yourself to recharge the battery for six or eight hours if it nears empty.

You can recharge your Tab 4 NOOK by connecting the USB cable to a USB port on a PC, although this is a very slow process that takes as many as 10 hours for a full refill. Consider the USB charging option as an emergency backup only.

Inspecting the Gadget

Now for a physical examination. No need for a stethoscope or rubber gloves. Take your Tab 4 NOOK and place it on a desk or table in front of you. See Figure 1-5 for a guided tour of the front of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK. All of the following descriptions are based on looking at the tablet lying on its back, with its top facing away from you and the bottom closest to you: very much like the way you would look at a page from a book.

The front

The front is home to several items of note, one strictly for advertising purposes:

A Samsung logo at the top of the frontThe front-facing camera lensThe LCD color touchscreenThree keys at the bottom are shown in Figure 1-6. They are, from left to right: Recent. Touch and hold it to see apps you’ve used recently.Home. Wherever you are on your tablet, press this key to go to the Home screen.Back. Touch to return to the previous screen or option.

Figure 1-5:A map to the external parts on the front of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK.

Figure 1-6:The keys just below the LCD screen are Recent, Home, and Back.

The left side

Move along. There’s nothing to see here, folks. Really. Nothing. The left side of the Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK is so elegantly empty it should go on display at a museum of contemporary art.

The right side

The right side is where you’ll find several essential keys, a blaster, a pinhole, and a slot. Yes, I said blaster. From top to bottom on the right side, they are:

A tiny hole behind which hides a microphone. It picks up sound for videos, video conferences, and your voice for Internet (not cellular) phone calls. Make sure neither the protective case you use, nor your hand, blocks the opening. The Power/Lock key. Press and hold it for a second or two to turn your Tab 4 NOOK on or off. Press it briefly and release to lock the tablet or wake it from sleep.The Volume key. When the Home screen is displayed, press one end or the other of this rocket key to adjust the volume. When you’re playing music, any adjustments you make here affect only music volume. Either way, you know how they work, I’m sure: + means louder and – means quieter, all the way down to mute.The Infrared Blaster. Sorry to have to tell you, but this isn’t the latest version of Han Solo’s particle beam energy weapon; I’d love to have one to render harmless drivers who cut me off on the expressway. What you have here is an infrared beam that can do things like control your flat-screen TV.Memory card slot. This tiny opening can accept a little sliver of microSD or microSDHC card that holds information in addition to your tablet’s built-in memory. And though 32GB is a whole lot of room, if you fill up one card, you can simply remove it and install a new card.

The top side

Nice and simple, and logically designed: there is but one thing to see here: a headset jack. Here’s where you stick a 3.5mm connector for earbuds or connect to an external sound system.

The headset jack works well with earbuds or headphones, but you can also output audio from your Tab 4 NOOK to stereo systems with advanced controls and large speakers. For example, my car has a 3.5mm input jack for its radio; I bought a cable with a 3.5mm plug on each end (called a male-to-male cable) to use my NOOK as a music player.

The bottom

There’s just one thing to note down here. Although it’s lonely, it’s actually a very important, multipurpose portal: the microUSB port. Here’s where you attach the USB cable that came with your tablet. That cable, in turn, attaches to the AC adapter, allowing you to recharge the internal battery. You can disconnect that same cable from the AC adapter, then connect the cable to a PC or laptop to transfer or sync music or files.

The back

The tablet’s back gives the tablet something to hold up the front. To see it, turn your tablet over so that the front is facing down. Although you don’t have to baby your device, for safety’s sake put a cloth or a magazine under the screen.

Figure 1-7 points out the two items of note are on the back (plus some more advertising and a bit of legalese). Here’s what you’ll find:

The rear-facing camera. This is your tablet’s main camera, for taking photos or videos while you watch the LCD on the other side. In the lower-right corner is a grill that covers the speaker. If you’re going to listen closely to music or speech, don’t lay the tablet flat on its back; to get the best sound, you have to make sure the speaker isn’t covered.

Figure 1-7:The back of the tablet has the rear-facing camera and a tiny speaker.

Turning On, Turning Off, Going to Sleep

The high-tech battery in your Tab 4 NOOK can hold its charge for several weeks when it’s young and fresh and the tablet is off. Once you turn it on, the battery should provide power for somewhere between six and ten hours.

You can save battery power by reducing the brightness of the screen and by turning off radios when you don’t need them.

Powering on

I imagine you’ve figured out this is the way to turn on your Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK: Press and hold the key for two seconds (one Mississippi, two Mississippi).

If this is the first time you’ve given life to your tablet, you’ll immediately start setup, which may take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes, depending on how much detail you want to get into.

On the other hand, if you’ve already set up the device, turning it on brings you to either of two places:

The Home screen (if you haven’t required all users to enter a protective pattern, password, or PIN)The Lock screen (where have to enter the proper pattern, password, or PIN)

I recommend using the Lock screen and requiring users to enter a code. You’ll store personal data, photos, and logins that may keep records of your credit card or banking information.

Powering off

Press the same switch for about two seconds while the device is running. A message asks if you really, really want to do that; tap Power Off to confirm.

Off is off. No alarms will ring, no email will be collected, no music will play.

Why would you want to completely turn off the NOOK tablet?

You’re on an airplane preparing for takeoff or landing and the flight attendant is glaring at you.You’re in a hospital room with sensitive medical equipment (and doctors).You want to put your tablet on the shelf for a month while you sit down with a yellow legal pad to write your own Great American (or Canadian) Novel. Your battery is very low and you want to fully recharge it as quickly as possible. Attach the microUSB connector to the tablet and the full-size USB connector to an AC adapter that’s plugged into the wall.

Going to sleep

The third option is to put your tablet to sleep, which in electronic terms is not the same thing we mean when Fido is headed to the vet for the last time. Putting a tablet to sleep means that the LCD screen and most of its internal circuitry are turned off, and just a small amount of power is provided to the system — enough to allow the device to return from the vet, I mean from sleep, at the push of a button. If you put a fully charged NOOK into Sleep mode, it should hold its charge for several days.

Here’s how to put the NOOK tablet to sleep: Briefly touch the Power/Lock key. Don’t hold it and count river names.

While the tablet’s asleep, the following functions are still awake:

Email will still be received, if the Wi-Fi radio is turned on. You can turn off the Wi-Fi from Settings, or put the tablet into Airplane Mode to reduce power consumption.If your tablet is playing music, that will continue.Any alarms or timers you’ve set will remain active. (I discuss alarms in Chapter 14.)

To wake up a sleeping NOOK, briefly press the Power/Lock key. If you have required entry of a pattern, password, or PIN, you’ll go to the unlock screen; otherwise, the tablet will go directly to the Home screen or the last page you were consulting before its hiatus.

Setting the sleep timeout

Your tablet will go to sleep all by itself if you don’t do anything on it for a while. Why would you want this to happen? It’ll save battery power and serve as a level of protection if someone lays paws on your NOOK without your permission.

Here’s how to customize the sleep control:

Swipe down from the top of the Home screen, and tap the Settings (gear) icon.Choose the Device Panel.