Chapter 1
In This Chapter
Turning it on, turning it off
Flying off into Airplane Mode
Locking and unlocking the door to your tablet
Adding more memory on a microSD card
A rose is a rose is a rose,” wrote Gertrude Stein. I take her point: A tablet is a tablet is a tablet.
A small thin box frames a flat plastic screen that sits above some tiny processor and memory chips and a battery and we call it — in its dozens of brands — a tablet. That little box today can hold and display nearly all 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.
So I said a tablet is a tablet, but you could also say the same about cars. Yet you know there’s a vast difference between a Ferrari LaFerrari and a Nissan Versa.
With this version of the NOOK, Barnes and Noble has leap-frogged from a very basic model to one with nearly all the bells and whistles you could ever want. This tablet is more of a tablet than a basic tablet. Got that, Rose?
Just about the only thing the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 NOOK lacks is a decent instruction manual. And that’s why I wrote this book.
When you purchase your Tab S2 NOOK, it comes in an unpretentious cardboard box about the size of a thick paperback book. (Remember those?) The box is there mostly to protect the tablet on its long and complicated journey from the factory to a warehouse and from there to a store and into your hands. Within the box: the Galaxy Tab S2 NOOK and a few little necessities:
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 using the touchscreen and collect dirt. Put it back in the box as a treasured memento.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 NOOK comes with a built-in (and non-removable) rechargeable battery. Your battery probably still has some power in it from testing at the factory. (Mine arrived about half full.)
Why would you want to fully charge the battery before first use?
Bringing the battery to full charge may help it last longer. That is, if you properly condition it with a full charge before using it first. See Figure 1-3.
After the battery’s fully charged for the first time, you can use your tablet. But don’t be in a rush to top off the battery: Let it drain down to nearly empty, then recharge it fully. Do this for the first three or four cycles.
Recharge the battery when it’s at 15 or 20 percent of capacity; it’s generally not a good idea to let it go all the way to 0. In fact, the NOOK is smart enough to turn itself off before it reaches completely empty.
When you first turn on the tablet, you have to register the device at lots of places. You have to sign in to a Wi-Fi system and sign in with Samsung, Google, and a few apps makers. And if you want to use the NOOK facilities, you need to sign in and create a Barnes & Noble account or register using an existing account you may already have.
Be sure to install any software updates.
Don’t start the registration and update process with an insufficient battery charge. If the tablet were to turn off, you might have to reset all the operating system elements and apps when you begin again.
And so, here’s how to give your tablet its first full charge:
Attach the larger end of the USB cable to the charger.
The cable only fits one way. Pay attention to the white positioning bar inside the charger and its corresponding bar inside the cable. Don’t force the two positioning bars against each other.
Attach the USB cable to the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 NOOK.
The smaller connector on the cable connects to the port on the bottom of your tablet. The side of the cable 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 printed on dead trees, bake a cake. A nearly empty battery can take as long as four hours to recharge.
For the first three or four times you use your tablet, I recommend draining the battery to nearly empty and then fully recharging it.
You can also recharge your Tab S2 NOOK by connecting the USB cable to a USB port on a PC or laptop, although this is a relatively slow process that can take six or more hours for a full refill. I consider the USB charging option as an emergency backup only.
Begin with a physical examination. No need for a stethoscope or rubber gloves. Place your Tab S2 NOOK on a desk or table in front of you with the tablet lying on its back, with its top facing away from you. See Figure 1-5 for a guided tour.
The front is home to several items of note, the most significant one being the screen:
Move along. There’s nothing to see here, folks. Really. Nothing. The left side of the Galaxy Tab S2 NOOK serves no purpose other than to give you somewhere to place your fingers when you hold the tablet.
The right side is where you’ll find several essential keys, a pinhole, and a slot. From top to bottom on the right side, they are:
A handsome, shiny near-twin to the left side, the top side has just a tiny little pinhole. Despite what Samsung and Barnes & Noble show in their manuals, this little pinhole is the entryway to the microphone.
Hidden behind a tiny hole, it picks up sound for videos, video conferences, and your voice for Internet (not cellular) phone calls. If you plan to use the microphone, make sure neither the protective case you use, nor your hand, blocks the opening.
Way down here is the place where your tablet gets its power and outputs a bit of sound.
The second opening from the left is the all-important USB charger/accessory port. Here’s where you attach the USB cable that comes 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.
Samsung promises that you can use this same port for accessories (not included in original purchase). What kind of accessories? Perhaps an external keyboard or an external memory storage device like a USB flash key.
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). Here’s what you find:
The high-tech battery in your Tab S2 NOOK can hold its charge for several weeks when it’s young and fresh, and the tablet is off. When you turn it on, the battery should provide power for somewhere between six and ten hours.
I’ve already told you how to use the Power key to turn on your Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 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’re can’t use it for reading or viewing or Internetting until you complete a few setup steps. The initial setup can 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:
Use a password that’s difficult and illogical. How about 16Friskie66laserBeam? Don’t ask me what it means, but it does have meaning to me, and I can remember it. And no, I’ll never use that password again, but it is of the sort I like.
Press the Power 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.
Why would you want to completely turn off the NOOK tablet?
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.
The other way to look at Sleep Mode is as “Lock Mode,” which is a way to block access to the tablet to unauthorized fingers and eyes without fully turning it off.
By default, the tablet automatically goes to sleep after the inactivity period. You get to set that amount of time.
While the tablet’s asleep, the following functions are still awake:
To wake up a sleeping NOOK, briefly press the Power/Lock key. If you have to enter a pattern, password, fingerprint, or PIN, you’ll go to the Unlock screen; otherwise, you’ll go directly to the Home screen or the last page you were on.
Your tablet goes to sleep all by itself if you don’t do anything for a while. Why would you want this to happen? It’ll save battery power and serve as some protection if someone lays paws on your NOOK without your permission.
Here’s how to customize the sleep control:
Choose a timeout value from the list.
I prefer 5 minutes; the standard value is 30 seconds. You can set the sleep timeout in a range from 15 seconds to 10 minutes.
Press the Home key to return to the Home screen.
For most users, a safe amount of time is between 2 and 10 minutes.
You can manually lock the screen by briefly pressing the Power/Lock key on the right side of the tablet.
Please allow me to ask a few questions:
The Galaxy Tab S2 NOOK, as delivered, uses the very basic one-finger left-to-right unlock pattern, which is essentially an open door. Anyone picking up your tablet can figure that one out.
The swipe (or the choice of None for the Lock screen) offers no security for your tablet contents. You do have other options:
Pattern. A gesture you create by drawing on your screen. This option gives you a medium level of security, which is better than a mere swipe.
The screen displays nine dots in a three-by-three pattern. Set a pattern by tapping any one dot; keep your finger on the screen as you move to other dots on the screen. Don’t use an obvious pattern like a box or a line. The pattern lock can start at any dot. See Figure 1-8.
My favorite type of password is a phone number or address that has no direct connection to you but that you can recall from memory. An old phone number of a distant relative? The street address of the post office in the town you lived in three jobs ago? Oh, and don’t write it down on a sticky note and slap it to the bottom of the tablet.
Fingerprint. Require the device to recognize your fingerprint for a high level of security. On the Tab S2 NOOK, the Home key has a fingerprint reader.
The electronic fingerprint reader in the Home key can identify certain unique — or at least rare — characteristics of the markings on the end of one of your fingers. It’s not a perfect system, but you can experiment with friends and family, especially siblings. Here’s your chance to blame everything on your brother or sister if their fingerprints prove similar enough to fool the reading device.
You can register as many as four fingerprints, and a password will also be recorded as an alternative means of entry to the tablet.
To change the backup password for your fingerprints, do this:
Fingerprints can also give you access to your Samsung account and certain online accounts. You’ll find an option for those settings in the same Lock Screen and Security section.
While you’re choosing a pattern, password, or PIN unlocking scheme, you’re offered other ways to customize how your tablet greets you. Here are the options:
Owner Information. You can list your name and other information on the Lock screen, in hopes that a good Samaritan would return it. Tap Owner Information; then tap Show Owner Info on Lock Screen to enable or disable the option. Touch in the text field and type.
My owner information message has my name, email address, and REWARD FOR RETURN. I’ve never had to test whether the promise of a reward will entice someone to return my tablet, because I’m a pretty careful guy. I figure it can’t hurt.
Depending on which lockdown method you select, you’ll see one of these options:
Although many scientists and some pilots say it’s much ado about nothing, most airlines require passengers to turn off all electronic devices during takeoff and landing.
Today nearly every passenger has a phone and a tablet, and once on a 12-hour trans-Pacific flight, the annoying kid sitting across the row from me had a radio-controlled robot that beeped and whirred and said something from time to time. The theory is that all of these devices could somehow interfere with an airplane’s essential navigational and control systems if they were transmitting radio signals. Little by little, the airlines and government agencies have been relaxing most of the regulations. In fact, some airlines have begun offering Wi-Fi broadcasts of in-flight movies that can be viewed on tablets, laptops, and phones.
In any case, your nifty NOOK has a setting called Airplane Mode. It disables Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios but lets you read eBooks and play videos and music. You have two quick and easy ways to turn off the transmitting portion of the radios but leave other functions enabled.
The appy way to Airplane Mode:
The power way to Airplane Mode:
Your Galaxy S2 NOOK comes with 32GB of internal memory, which is a lot of space, but a good portion of that memory is devoted to the Android operating system and to various apps, including the NOOK app. You can, though, easily expand the amount of storage space in your tablet by plugging in a fingernail-sized microSD memory card.
There are enough kinds of secure digital (SD) cards to confuse even the experts. There are SD, miniSD, and microSD sizes, and then there are SD, SDHC (high capacity), and SDXC (extended capacity).
I recommend buying a microSDHC card of at least 32GB, of class 6 speed; the maximum memory card size that can be used by the advanced Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 NOOK is 128GB, which is a huge amount of space. Make sure it’s made by a recognized name brand: Kingston, Lexar, Samsung, Sandisk, Toshiba, or Transcend.
The kind designers at Samsung have made sure you don’t need a post-graduate degree in engineering to install a memory card. You can get to the card slot without removing the back cover, although with the ultra-thin and lightweight Tab S2 NOOK model you do need to make use of a tiny little tool to open the tray on the side of the tablet that holds the memory card. The tool is basically a little pin that fits into a pinhole on the side of the tablet to release the tray. (If you misplace the tool — easy to do — you can do it yourself with a sturdy pin or a thin paper clip.)
Just take your time, be careful, and follow these instructions to install a memory card:
Turn off the device.
Technically this isn’t required, but it is a good practice anytime you’re working with electrical devices.
Place your NOOK face up on a well-lit, clean, level surface.
The Samsung logo should be at the top of the device.
Make sure no cups of coffee, soda, water, molten iron, or anything else can spill onto your tablet.
Carefully insert the removal tool into the pinhole beside the tray and push gently until the tray extends from the tablet.
The tray doesn’t completely detach; a flexible band attaches to the internals of the tablet.
Hold the memory card with the printed logo facing up toward you. Carefully place it in the tray.
The gold electrical contacts face down, toward the back of the device. The small triangle faces toward the Galaxy Tab S2 NOOK.
Place the card carefully; it only fits in the correct orientation with its gold electrical contacts facing the tablet. If the memory card looks about twice as large as the opening, you’ve got the wrong card. Only micros need apply.
Gently push the tray into place.
When a memory card’s installed in the tablet, it’s automatically mounted and ready for use. Mounting means the tablet has electronically recognized the card and it’s ready for use.
When you install an optional memory card, it is automatically mounted (electronically recognized by the device) and prepared for use. However, if you choose to remove the card from the tablet, you should unmount the card using the operating system.
Unmounting the card helps prevent damage to the data stored on the card, especially if you remove the memory while the system is powered on.
If you unmount a card but do not physically remove it from the tablet, you will need to instruct the system to mount it again in order for it to be available to you for use.
Here’s how to unmount a card:
If you need to manually mount a card, do this:
When you install an optional memory card in your device, the card memory displays as Total Space and Available Space.
When you buy a new microSDHC, it should come formatted (a process that electronically indexes its memory so that the computer inside your tablet knows where to store or retrieve information). In that case, it’s ready to use.
If you insert an unformatted microSDHC card, the Galaxy Tab S2 NOOK will alert you. No biggie. To format a microSD memory card when the system asks, follow these steps:
Tap the Format Now icon.
You’re asked if you are sure. Sure you’re sure!
Here’s how to manually format (or reformat) a memory card: