Nook; the Barnes and Noble e-Reader - Page 2

I think if it's a choice between $150 for the Nook and equal or more for the Sony I'd just go with the Nook. My girlfriend has a Sony Reader Pocket (in pink naturally) and the UI is pretty bad, the lack of expandable memory is disappointing, and that you have to hook it up by USB to charge it/get new books is frustrating as well.

Had the Nook been available for $150 we would have gotten it for sure (especially since she had a $30 gift card for BN at the time). The only things that I really like about the Sony one are its great battery life, it's very small size, and the excellent contrast of the eInk display. Everything else is inferior to the Nook.

I'm really loving this thing. Read outside yesterday during my lunch and the screen was perfectly readable even in direct sunlight. I'm also digging the free book every Friday (even if today's isn't my cup of tea), and while the daily blog content is hit or miss, it's there every day.

I do wish my B&N membership got me a little more in regards to ebooks though. I get the 15% and 20% coupons, but none of them are good for Nook-related items. The idea is to stop buying the physical books!

Also, saw Borders unveiled their ebook store the other day. They're not introducing a portable reader, just a PC-based one with ebooks that are usable on most existing readers. But a quick price comparison showed most of their ebooks the same or more expensive than B&N, so no thanks.

Oh, and Nook + Project Gutenberg = downright evil.

Do you find the free ebook in the nook? I was curious the other day and trying to see if there was a list of the books they've made available online, but couldn't find anything. Probably going to be picking up one of these suckers soon...

Yes, the offer a free book every Friday and the Nook shop has a free ebook section. But this link shows the free ebooks on the B&N site.

Thanks, just what I was looking for. How are you liking the wifi model? I figure I don't really need 3G so that's the one I'm going to go for...

I didn't know about that link, thanks Richard. I actually really dislike the way they're pushing free books; if you look at what's available in terms of non-PD stuff, it's kind of a scam.

We get to use these units on a loan-out basis next week, so I'll be able to see how they work at home as opposed to in store. First thing I want to see is how they read screenplay PDFs; not knowing that is what's keeping me from buying one.

And Borders has really screwed the pooch with Kobo/their bookstore; I had a couple of people come in this week saying that they either bought a Kobo and hated it, or that they tried it out and it was crap.

I haven't used the WiFi outside my own connection yet, but I get good reception anywhere in our apartment. I'm probably going to stop by a B&N this weekend to see how their WiFi is.

Rath, haven't looked at a screenplay, but I did load a couple of RPG books in PDF format. Had to up the font size a couple of times to make them readable, but they work.

Seriously, Project Gutenberg is awesome for older stuff. Got all 6000 pages of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, plus some Zane Gray and Edgar Rice Burroughs.

This just became available on Android. Can't wait to take it for a spin.

Hey Cocoa, is that you over at Nookboards? That name can't be that common.

Bah. I bought my kindle recently, and now they release a new one. Momentarily I will go to Amazon and check my order history, but I guarantee it was 31 days ago.

Shoot.

ETA: June 28! I fucking knew it. Amazon is pretty good about stuff like this, so I bet they will hook me up with a new one. Of course, I'm ass out on the cover I bought for it (since I reckon the new version requires a smaller cover), but oh well.

I post there as DailyRich, and yeah, the lot of 'em seem ready to jump off a cliff. It's not like B&N is going to throw up their hands and stop supporting the Nook.

Ugh. That'll be a dealbreaker, actually. I will be vacationing from 8/25 through Labor Day and will be relying on my kindle to make travel less hellish.

Don't be a douche, Amazon.

And none of this means they have to stop using the Nook they already liked enough to buy!

I'm hoping maybe Amazon will just let me(or everyone) hold on to their KindleII until KindleIII ships, and then give them 2 weeks or so to send back KindleII.

B&N announced the NOOKColor today.

Full color 7" screen (LCD, not e-ink, but apparently has something to reduce glare), touchscreen, built-in WiFi, 8gb built-in memory expandable via microSD. Web browser and social network features as well. Dropping in November for $250.

Some folks are bummed about the battery life (8 hours with the wireless turned off). Me, I'm interested.

That sounds like literally the worst possible product. Sadly, it will probably succeed because ZOMGCOLOR! The nook wasn't the reader for me, but at least it was a reader, and from most opinions of the owners, a pretty good one.

I'm waiting to see what they say about the included CPU. Although honestly, I'm just waiting for the iPad 2G.

It also can create and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. Really seems like they're positioning it as the iPad for students who can't afford iPads.

Right, but Samsung, a company that actually creates electronics, tried to do that with the Galaxy Tab. They couldn't get the price to a point that was too competitive with the ipad. Where are the corners that were cut here?

No 3G, it looks like, or at least no mention on the site that I can find, so that probably helped with the cost.

Maybe B&N is willing to take the financial hit with the low price and hope volume takes over?

It's about volume. The focus of store and personnel performance is now on Nook sales. B&N is pushing and pushing hard. If employees are not engaged in Nook sales they are being poorly reviewed.

Well, it just seems unlikely. Like the Tab has 3G, but a less advanced screen. So, assume the price differential between those two components is about $30...you still have a product with a base price of $600 versus a product with a base price of $250. I'm expecting the nook to have SERIOUS shortcomings in processor speed and ram. the battery life is decent for a tablet and the memory is large, and those are the two remaining components.

I think they're willing to take the loss on the price point.

I was at a Barnes & Noble not long ago reading my Kindle (B&N is an easy place to hang out before movies at the Grove) and, I shit ye not, an employee trying to sell a customer on the nook kind of gave me a grin as he used me as an example of nook-user. I wasn't going to say a word until the person asked to see the thing as, well, it's a DX so it was bigger than the nooks and as if we were in a goddamn Amazon commercial, I held it out and was like <polite cough>, "It's a Kindle."

We all kind of laughed. Kind of.

The truth is, with Barnes & Noble up for sale and facing bankruptcy unless it has some kind of stellar holiday season, buying a nook seems dubious, no?

If that's the case, rolling a brand new version seems equally dubious, no?

Barnes & Noble is up for sale, yeah, and they just had this bitter proxy fight for control of the board, but nook is doing well for them, and for the stores. Borders is going to go bankrupt first. That being said, the way they train their employees, and the refusal of certain employees to get on board with this, is what's going to kill them if they don't pull their heads out of their assses. I've only been working for the company for a year, and it's been an uphill battle getting everyone on the same page with nook -- and that's just in our store.

And now this fucking device. I'm not happy. Considering that nook didn't ship until January of last year, and the major bugs with the device weren't worked out until March, this Hail Mary play better work. But even after all that, I'd still buy a nook over a Kindle, simply because I don't like being forced to buy books from Amazon, and Amazon alone. I don't cotton to bullying like that.

"Now trying to buy your business with CUPCAKES FOR THE KIDDIES!"

Oh hey Blofeld whats up?

My girlfriend got me a kindle (the newest model) for our anniversary, and I gotta say that I love it. The last few times the amount of Nook pushing at B&N has been downright sad and desperate. I kinda wish the clerk would just be wiping tears from their eyes saying "Buy this thing that'll put me out of a job!". It's like Patton Oswalt's bit about cashiers at the supermarket showing customers how to use the self-checkout lanes.

I'm sorry, but people who say e-Readers are going to destroy the publishing industry and bookstores as a whole are fucking retarded. It's incredibly misguided to think that, especially since the publishing industry has looked at the mistakes of the music industry and the film industry and tried to account for it. The whole point of bookstores (and again, you want to see pathetic, go to a fucking Borders) adopting digital technology like this is to adjust and change, rather than cling to an outdated buisness model. Fun fact: nook has sold more units out of Barnes & Noble stores than it has online, which is not what the company figured, which in turn accounts for wider store sales.

On top of which, some fourteen year old kid in Mumbai isn't going to make a living selling pirated copies of the latest Harry Potter book on the street, just like the kid surfing the internet and pirating mp3s isn't going to pirate Michael Chabon and John Grisham for his Kindle. The market for e-readers and reading in general is wildly different than it is for your average pirate.

That being said, I have no real affection for either of these devices (I've fallen back in love with books as of late), nor do I have a long-term future with this company at the sales floor level, I just think doomsaying at this early in the game (and it is still very early, as there's still no iPod of e-readers) is silly.

Edit: I can see what some of you are saying about Barnes & Noble employees seeming "desperate" as they push the nook, though. I think that's the company's fault, because the training for these was really, really shabby. I got fifteen minutes with the device before I was told to go out to the floor and sell it, and I'm effectively a sales lead for the device now. (Granted, I went out and taught myself how to use the fucking thing.) On top of which, there was very little motivation given by managers and the corporate offices other than "sell the device so our store makes plan."

I wouldn't say it's going to destroy the entire publishing industry, but it will definitely decrease the amount of brick-n-mortar giant B&N's and Borders in the suburbs.

The last few times I've been in a B&N or Borders I've been disappointed to hear that they don't have something in stock but can "order it online" for me. Of course you can. I could too, but I came into this place to physically obtain it and leave with it. The more you push me to just order books online and get them directly to my device without the middleman involved the more I may like it.

I feel like I'm going to be that character in the futuristic sci-fi movie that's the crazy old man "from Before Times" that hordes all these strange paper constructions called "books". I'll have a long gray beard and have tons of ancient papercuts on my hands.

I absolutely hear what you're saying, Rando, and I agree.

There are always going to be some books I'll have to have a print copy of. I'll always have a copy of The Hobbit and LOTR, for example, and something like that Making of Star Wars book just wouldn't be the same on an e-reader.

Yeah, I still long for my old Art of the Matrix book that I lost in a move. But there are 'collector' books and there are just ones you consume. I LOVE e-book libraries. I already use online journals, Books24x7, Safari books, etc and instant access to books like that is amazing.

Overdrive is alright, but I hate the waiting list to check out a book. I'd like to get to the point though where libraries could have a comprehensive electronic collection that you can instantly check out from.

But when I love a book and want to keep it for posterity, I'm going to buy a physical copy that I control (much like I do with film).

Yeah, personally, I like the idea of e-readers a lot, but I'm not getting rid of my library any time soon.

I got to play with a NookColor today. Even with the beta software it was running, it looked very, very nice.

Isn't this thing supposed to come out in a few weeks though? How 'beta' can the software be?

And I know Overdrive differs by library, I use my parents Chicago Public Library and my Fairfax Library memberships, but with both there are generally double digit queues to check out at least some books ... especially popular ones like Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

What they showed us was basically a prototype, and when I saw that it was responding somewhat slower than I expected, that was one of the first questions out of my mouth. The beta software it was running was much, much better than version 1.1 or even 1.2 on the original nook, and the tech guy showing it to us said that they're putting the final touches on 1.1 for Nook color before downloading them to the devices for shipment.

I'm still skeptical, but I'm less skeptical about the device and more skeptical about whether or not they'll repeat the same mistakes they made last holiday season.