US bookseller Barnes & Noble (B&N) announced a partnership with Samsung to develop co-branded tablets featuring B&N’s “digital reading experience”, following a bumpy ride for its own Nook-branded tablets.

The partnership will see Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 4 hardware combined with customised Nook software. This will give customers “full-featured tablets that are designed for reading, with easy access to Barnes & Noble’s expansive digital collection of more than three million books, leading magazines and newspapers”.

The companies are expected to introduce the Galaxy Tab 4 Nook in a 7-inch version early in August. It will be sold via B&N’s network of nearly 700 bookstores across the US and online.

Barnes & Noble announced its first Nook tablet in 2011, building on its existing position in the eBook reader market. In this way, it was echoing the strategy used by Amazon, which has done similar with the Kindle line.

Earlier this year, it was reported that B&N had laid-off a number of hardware engineers from the Nook unit, as it looked to restructure a business unit which had seen falling sales in 2013.

It was previously reported that the company was looking to move away from the tablet space to focus on the delivery of content to third-party iOS and Android devices.

With its current Samsung partnership, B&N is following a path somewhere between the two – reducing its exposure to the hardware market, while still offering devices that feature its content front-and-centre.

Separately, the bookseller said that the Nook team would be relocated to a new site in Santa Clara, California, by the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2015, in a move that will reduce its ongoing facilities costs.

Michael Huseby, CEO of B&N, said: “This move is a significant step in our ongoing efforts to both rationalise and better equip the Nook business to achieve success, while positioning the digital education team and platform for future growth.”