13 Things you Need to Know about the Barnes & Noble Nook
The introduction of the Nook electronic book reader by Barnes & Noble has created a huge stir. Details about the device and how it will be used by consumers are still rolling out. I attended a press event this morning hosted by William Lynch, President of Barnes & Noble. Here’s my take on the user experience based on that call.
- Users can purchase an e-book with two touches on the Nook.
- E-books can be loaned to other Nook owners, or those with any version of eReader software installed on a handset or computer. The loan period is 14 days, after which the e-book disappears on the lendee’s device. The original owner cannot access the e-book during the loan period.
- Publishers can restrict their books from being loaned.
- Bookmarks, annotations and “furthest read” positions are synced across all devices using eReader software.
- There is no text-to-speech option on the Nook by design.
- The Nook is built “somewhere in Asia.”
- The deals with iRex and Plastic Logic are for commerce and content provision only and do not affect the Nook.
- The Nook ships at launch with no web browser, nor any RSS capability. The company could add it later if customers desire.
- Barnes & Noble want to produce an SDK for the Android-based Nook.
- The color touchscreen is capacitive.
- E-books readable with any currently shipping eReader version should work on the Nook. The company is going to verify this works.
- Only the bn.com store will be accessible via the Nook. Legacy eReader and Fictionwise content must be manually copied over USB, although it should also work via memory card.
- E-books cannot be purchased outside the U. S. Technology is used to determine the actual location of the buyer to enforce this restriction.
This device *might* make me jump into the eBook market. I’m hoping that BN has some demo models in stores as my big issue is a screen that just doesn’t seem conducive to reading for long stretches.
Every store will have demos for customer testing.
I can verify that ebooks from BN do work on Windows Mobile with eReader.
I have a question:
Why do most of the eReaders all come in white?
There are going to be several different Nook covers available created by different designers such as Kate Spade.
aw…I hate the part where they say “might add it later.” That usually means if you want this feature you’ll have to buy the NEW Nook v2.0.
This has an advantage as it’s Android. I can guarantee the Android community will hack this baby up starting the minute it ships.
as long as it’s easy to get it working (like an installer – click on this and it installs). I have a Pre and the little hacks break when the mfg updates – so since I need it to operate flawlessly all the time I don’t experiment with the Pre much. Not to say that I don’t have a couple of older laptops I mess with mercilessly.
-Only the bn.com store will be accessible via the Nook. Legacy eReader and -Fictionwise content must be manually copied over USB, although it should -also work via memory card.
The first eink device that allows me to read all of my ereader books. I so want this. The price is also awesome.
Thanks heaps for this info, James. I’m a little surprised they didn’t have the answer about the books purchased through legacy means being compatible already confirmed, but hey – it’s always worth checking again.
Guess what’s on my Christmas wish list?
Check your pre-orders. Mine was canceled and I just had a most unpleasant customer service experience in figuring out why and how to get re-pre-ordered and still get my free ebook.
There is one clear distinction to me now between the Nook and the Kindle: Amazon customer service is much friendlier!
I went here to check if I could get the book for my nook: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Presentation-Secrets-of-Steve-Jobs/Carmine-Gallo/e/9780071636087/?itm=1
Not only was it not available for nook but they don’t have that nice little button Amazon has “I’d like to read this on my nook!”
B&N needs to figure out its a package deal if they want to win the war: web site as well as ebook reader.
The Nook is not even available yet so I doubt this is unusual. I rarely find that a book I want, even a recent release, that’s not available for eReader. I expect the same will hold true for the Nook when it’s shipping.
I’d agree James except they’ve been selling ebooks for months now. The nook is just one more ereader device at this point.
I’m reading the Steve Job’s book on my Kindle DX, they had it.
That is my frustration. I would like to stick with one service but the book on Steve Jobs, The Presentation Skills of Steve Jobs is a good example. I can find it in the kindle format but not on ereader or ebook on bn.com. Or I can find the first 2 books in a series on ereader book 3 on amazon, book 4 on ereader, etc. Until there is more consistency where I can find what I need at one site, I won’t be investing in ereader hardware. I have stanza and kindle loaded on my iphone.
After assuring me the pre-order would go through fine the second time, they canceled it. All the folks that explain cancellations work in New York so they’re now gone.
I can buy ebooks just fine but the actual nook has them spooked for some reason (and they don’t even charge for it until it ships.)
E-books cannot be purchased outside the U.S.
Almost got lulled into ordering one to Europe. Why, with only the bn.com store accessible I would have to upload everything only via USB?
Any idea if the nook would allow transfer over WiFi while in my home wireless network?
I don’t know but it was specifically stated that copy was via USB.
So B&N won’t allow my pre-order because, get this: my email address has an international ISP! Yes ladies and gents, don’t give them your Mobile Me email address for your account when pre-ordering your nook.
I’m on hold to hopefully get someone with a brain to resolve this.
Yep, they refuse to ship nook’s to customers with either @me.com or @mac.com email addresses!!! Doesn’t matter about the delivery postal address. Doesn’t matter about the billing address for the credit card. I’ve already bought ebooks, as suggested by their Thank You for your purchase page, and they’re refusing to give me my money back.
Holy smokes! Five phone calls (they kept dropping the call) 6 customer service representatives and one dude in “Digital Support” a trip to http://utrace.de to prove I wasn’t using an “International ISP”…
And finally someone waiting on the phone to catch my eighth pre-order after I made it on the web site and “push it through” for me.
The final word on this odyssey they put me through is “They’re being very very very careful about where these units are being shipped.”
I’m not impressed with Barnes and Noble customer service, at all, I mean they didn’t even spiff me a free accessory or ebook for the incredible trouble they put me through as they were being very very very careful.
OK they just canceled it again!
At this point I have to ask myself: just how badly do I want this device? I mean this is insane!
Scotty
give up. It can’t be worth the hassle.
They had me pre-order three more times. One of which they did entirely themselves.
That last one worked except it turns out they hadn’t been giving all the money back. Yes, they charge your card upon shipping but they grab the money during the pre-order process (and don’t give it back right away when they cancel it.)
So not only have I got a hold for something like 8 nook’s worth of money, they managed to trigger a security lock down on my card at the bank. So now I have to call the bank to get my card turned back on. B & N now has to FAX the bank to cancel all the holds and try to get one more authorization run through on my card so that they won’t cancel my order one more time!
This is where I stand quietly knocking my shoe heels together and recite “There is no place like Amazon.com, there is no place like Amazon.com”…
Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse I mention that I really deserved something for my troubles. I thought throwing in a 2 year plan was a spiff idea but alas they thought a $5 gift card was more in line.
At this point they’ve wasted enough of my time to have paid for the nook!
Anyway, the nice young lady and I have a date to compare notes about our mutual efforts to get my card back together and hopefully she will then later report my pre-order is now shiny.
With a morning like this I’m glad I have actual cash in my pocket to buy lunch with.
To conclude (hopefully) this saga…
When I got up this morning:
They didn’t fix the holds. The bank says I’ll have my several thousand dollars back some time next week.
They didn’t fix the pre-order that was listed to be canceled due to them not being able to get another pre-authorization out of the bank (and whom could reasonably blame the bank at this point).
After I spent an hour on the phone with them:
They still can’t expedite the holds. (which I’ve seen done but for whatever reason B&N is incapable of doing.)
They were surprised at how much money was on hold. Oh, gee, they didn’t even realize how many nooks worth of money they had on hold (slaps forehead).
They swear that I have a nook on pre-order now, for sure, even though when I call in the phone bot tells me the order is set to be canceled due to inability to obtain a pre-authorization (you can ignore that message sir, really!).
Maybe they’ll throw in a 2 year extended warranty, maybe.
The important 14th item I’d add to James’ list: they take your money and you won’t have it while you wait for the nook to ship. When Amazon says they won’t charge your card until your Kindle ships: they don’t take your money in *any fashion* until your Kindle ships! In this case they confirm the nook won’t ship until the end of November.
There is one important thing overlooked in this list:
You can borrow Adobe DRMed ePub eBooks from a public library.
It’s done via Adobe Digital Editions download to a desktop and then transfered via USB cable. Like the Sony Reader.
But still. If you do a lot of library reading, it can pay for itself that way in less than a year.
In the process of stuffing my B&N ebook shelf for my nook I managed to stack in 82 ebooks and discover a bunch of bugs with their web store front. One of which has to do with billing.
If you pick out a $0.01 title and purchase it the receipt page that comes up says they charged you $0.00! I’m interested to see if I get charged $0.01, or if I get charged $0.01 + WA sales tax, or if their systems managed to bundle up all the transactions and make one single charge.
In thinking about stuffing this ereader (or any ereader) with books is this: how many books can an ereader take before it’s processes slow up? I own a Jetbook currently and I had a variety of about fifty books using a variety of formats (epub, mobi, etc) and pdfs and my last loading of about 10 books SLOWED everything down – if you are on the internal memory it is most probably a shared memory with only so much space similar to the Nokia 800 (ah RAM memory rears it’s ugly head again just like with computers in general). I removed some books and moved them on to the external card and things improved slightly. Then theres the weight of opening different formats on the processor. On the Jetbook it seems as if undrm’d epub loads slower than other formats. How will DRM affect that? Things to think about.
Well their credit card processing is indeed neolithic at BN.com! I just checked my online statement from the bank and what do you know? A whole long list of $0.01 charges for the penny ebooks! So if you want to whack the dinosaur upside the head and hopefully encourage it to evolve into a higher life form that is capable of combining charges so you don’t hit your daily transaction limit buy those penny ebooks now. Their Bank will apply the stick to them as their average daily transaction falls off and they start charging BN.com a higher percentage rate on their merchant account. (or they’ll stop carrying penny ebooks)
At this point I’m thinking I may be buying ePub for the nook from someone other than BN.com… I’m really not very happy with their back end systems at this point.