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Showing posts with label nook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nook. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

New Nook Tablet Announced

The Kindle Fire is just around the corner and Barnes & Noble has fired back with the new NOOKTablet, which is an upgraded version of the NOOKColor. Physically, the Kindle Fire and NOOKTablet are similar - they both have a 7" screen, both with Vivid technology for outdoor use; the Fire is about 1/2 ounce heavier (which you won't notice, after place both in a cover and adding an SD card to the Tablet). Inside, though, the new device will have twice the memory (1GB) and storage (16BG) as both the Fire and the NC, and will continue to have an SD card slot for expansion, features a microphone and an app that lets parents (or grandparents) record reading a book, complete with page turns, for their kids to play later on. This should be a great feature for those who travel or are deployed overseas.

Perhaps the most vocally wished for app for the Fire, Netflix, will be pre-installed, as will Hulu Plus (no word on plain Hulu, though) and Pandora Radio. Another feature that has been a constant features of the Amazon forums is parental controls -- the NOOKTablet will let parents turn off the web browser (but that appears to be the extent of the feature), while with the Kindle Fire you can block wireless access at home using your router. What both need, though, is a simple password-controlled blocking option for: web access, store access, library access and hidden category/book access. Just don't look for any of this soon, on either platform.

One area where the Kindle Fire is ahead, though, is with the included speakers - you get stereo, while the NOOKTablet has a single mono speaker built-in. Battery life looks a bit better on the Tablet (but real-life use may prove that to be a bit of marketing hype) and they claim it will charge even faster than the Fire (3 hrs vs. 4) and the native file support seems a bit richer (it includes many Microsoft formats, including powerpoint, which would require add-on apps on the Fire). You'll also get a few games built-in (Chess, Crossword, Sudoku), but a comparison of the Amazon Android Appstore vs. the NOOK Appstore will quickly shows that prices are higher and selection much poorer on the B&N side of the fence. Another shocker may be that of the 16GB of internal storage, 3GB is used by the OS and 12GB is reserved for purchases from B&N, leaving only 1GB for you to load on your own. You'll need that built-in SD card slot (which supports only up to 16GB) if you plan on taking several movies with you.

The NOOKTablet will be shipping next week, with a $249 price tag. The older NOOKColor has dropped in price to $199 and the updated SimpleTouch is now $99. If you have the NOOKColor, then you should be able to get NetFlix and Hulu Plus soon, while SimpleTouch owners will want to check for the update that improves text rendering and battery life. You'll be able to get support in-store, as with all the nook devices (although repairs and replacements have always seemed to require a long shipping round trip, from what I've seen); not quite the same as from Amazon, but with Amazon you can call 24x7 and usually get an overnight replacement before sending in the defective unit.

At the press conference, B&N was really playing up the lack of ads, but that isn't entirely true, as there are ads in store and there has been a persistent campaign from B&N that keeps placing un-ordered samples onto your nook with their updates (and you can't erase them, since they aren't part of your content, but the update itself).

Friday, July 1, 2011

"Upgrade" to a nook and get 30 free books

This morning I went to our local Barnes and Noble to check out their latest in-store deal before I reported it to you. If you bring in any dedicated ereader (not a phone with a reader app), you can get a nook branded microSD card with 30 books on it for free, with the purchase of any nook (original 3G, Wifi only, nookColor or the newest touchscreen nook). You don't have to turn in your existing ereader and you can even use a nook for the "upgrade".

The selection of books is actually quite good (although there are several classics mixed in) and there are three cookbooks included, which look great on the nookColor. However, there is no search facility for books (so, you need good indexes and table of contents in cookbooks) and no back "button" so you can get back to where you were if you click a link (which I did accidentally several times when reading recipes).

More details HERE, but this is an in-store only promotion and only "while supplies last". I know our store had at least a dolly load or two of the nookColors, but don't know how many of the microSD cards are in each store (which is the big limitation of the offer).

If you do decide to take advantage of the deal, consider getting a B&N membership at the same time - it includes a $25 credit on the nookColor (essentially you get the membership for free) and you can then get a discount on cafe, in-store book or online non-ebook purchases for a year.

Here's a list of all the books included (the links are mostly to Amazon paper editions, as I find their reviews better, generally), most of which are nook only in their ebook editions:
  1. The Good Housekeeping Cookbook: 1,275 Recipes from America's Favorite Test Kitchen, From the Editors of Good Housekeeping and Susan Westmoreland
  2. Big Bowl of Love: Delight Family and Friends with More than 150 Simple, Fabulous Recipes, by Cristina Ferrare
  3. Clean Start: Inspiring You to Eat Clean and Live Well with 100 New Clean Food Recipes, by Terry Walters
  4. Country Living The Mom's Guide to Running a Business: Strategies for Work Success and Family Balance, by Michelle Lee Ribeiro
  5. Bedside Baccalaureate: The Second Semester, by David Rubel
  6. AARP® Crash Course in Finding the Work You Love, by Samuel Greengard
  7. The 21st Century Crossword Puzzle Dictionary, by Kevin McCann and Mark Diehl
  8. Creating Your Best Life: The Ultimate Life List Guide, by Caroline Adams Miller MAPP and Dr. Michael B. Frisch
  9. Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History, by Scott Selby & Greg Campbell
  10. Checkout Girl: A Life Behind the Register, by Anna Sam
  11. Susie's Sun Signs: How to Truly Understand Your Lover, Family, Friends, Pets, and Yourself Using Astrology, by Susie Cox
  12. Soccer: The Player's Handbook, by M. B. Roberts and Ronald C. Modra
  13. It's a Jungle in There: Inspiring Lessons, Hard-Won Insights, and Other Acts of Entrepreneurial Daring, by Steven Schussler and Marvin Karlins
  14. Glory in the Fall: The Greatest Moments in World Series History, by Peter Golenbock
  15. Tiger's Curse (The Tiger Saga, Book 1), by Colleen Houck
  16. Love Virtually, by Daniel Glattauer, Katharina Bielenberg and Jamie Bulloch
  17. My Boyfriend Wrote a Book About Me: And Other Stories I Shouldn't Share with Acquaintances, Coworkers, Taxi drivers, Assistants, Job Interviewers, ... and Ex/Current/Future Boyfriends but Have, by Hilary Winston
  18. The Other Rembrandt, by Alex Connor
  19. The King Whisperers: Power Behind the Throne, from Rasputin to Rove, by Kerwin Swint
  20. Summer in a Glass: The Coming of Age of Winemaking in the Finger Lakes, by Evan Dawson and James Molesworth
  21. Jessica Lost: A Story of Birth, Adoption & The Meaning of Motherhood, by Bunny Crumpacker and Jil Picariello
  22. Empowerment: The Art of Creating Your Life as You Want It, by David Gershon and Gail Straub
  23. Know Your Rights: A Survival Guide for Non-Lawyers, by Ronald M. Benrey JD
  24. Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe and L. J. Swingle
  25. Don Quixote (Barnes & Noble Classics Series), by Miguel de Cervantes, Tobias Smollett and Carole Slade
  26. Classic Starts™: The Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle, John Burrows, Lucy Corvino and Arthur Pober Ed.
  27. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott and Scott McKowen
  28. Walden; Or, Life in the Woods, by Henry David Thoreau
  29. The Secret Garden (Sterling Classics), by Frances Hodgson Burnett and Scott McKowen
  30. Aesop's Fables (Illustrated Edition), by Arthur Rackham, V. S. Vernon-Jones and G. K. Chesterton

Monday, May 23, 2011

Refurbished Kindle2 3G ($90) or Nook 3G/WiFi ($85)

You can get a refurbished 2nd generation Kindle with 3G or 1st generation nook with 3G & WiFi at bargain basement prices today. These are both one-day deals, being offered on competing daily deal sites.

The deal on the Kindle is from WOOT, which is now an Amazon company, and it comes with a full one-year warranty from Amazon. Definitely worth considering if you are looking for a second Kindle in the family (or even your first reader; we have one of these in daily user here and there is little functional difference between it and the latest generation Kindle other than it doesn't support WiFi hotspots). By the time the warranty is ready to expire, there will no doubt be color Kindles or Kindle tablets out to consider for an upgrade. Like all Kindles, this one supports audiobooks (and there is a deal coming up on those; stay tuned for tomorrow's today's post on how to get 8 audiobooks for $6), although you load them by USB instead of via WiFi.

Over on Daily Steals, you can get an original nook with 3G and WiFi for $85. This ads WiFi (in case you don't live where AT&T works) and the ability to get the occasional goodie from the a B&N cafe, as well as to read books for free while inside a B&N. You can use MP3 audiobooks on the nook, but there is no support for Audible (which is no another Amazon company and highly integrated with the Kindle, especially the Kindle 3). The warranty on these is from B&N, but I know that the stories of warranty service on their forums seldom matches up to those at Amazon (no drop-ship replacement in advance of you sending in a broken unit, for example).

Which to get? Either would make a nice addition to a family that wants to add a second reader to access their library or a second reader for the person that wants to be able to read the freebies available in the "other" store. The nook can read DRM'd EPUB and PDF, in addition to books from the B&N store (a special flavor of DRM'd EPUB, PDF and their own eReader format) and can read books from most libraries. The Kindle is adding library support later this year and support Audible. Either way you go, it would be a winning choice.

Click HERE for the deal on the Kindle 2. This is worth visiting, just to read the ad text (woot is hilarious).

Click HERE for the deal on the nook. Click on Read More to read the full ad text. Although funny, I wonder some will think you can get Harry Potter as an ebook, after reading it?

Update:This just in: you can get brand new a nook WiFi only from B&N's ebay store (here), for only $99. Looks like the new nook that will be announced tomorrow is obsoleting all the current eInk versions, so it should be eInk, as well.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Nook Replacement Battery Kit $10

The Nook Rechargeable Battery Kit ($29.95 B&N), is on sale in Best Buy stores (but not online) for $9.95. This will fit any of the nook Classics (but not the nook Color) and makes you wonder if Best Buy just over-ordered or this is another sign of trouble with the nook, on top of the widespread rumors that the nook 3G has been discontinued without a replacement and that only WiFi based nooks will be sold once the current supplies are depleted.

Description
This rechargeable lithium-polymer battery is compatible with most NOOK eReaders and delivers up to 10 days battery life with wireless/music off (up to 2 days with wireless/music on).

What's Included:
  • Barnes & Noble Lithium-Polymer Battery for NOOK eReaders
  • Mini Philips screwdriver

Click HERE to order for pickup or check stock at your local BestBuy.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Free Book (nook) - The Pawn

The Pawn ($7.99 Kindle), by Steven James, the first in The Patrick Bowers Files trilogy, is free from Barnes and Noble today. This book was free in the Kindle store last November.

Book Description
As an environmental criminologist, Patrick Bowers uses 21st-century geospatial technology to analyze the time and space in which a crime takes place. Using an array of factors, Bowers can pinpoint clues to solve the toughest of cases. Bowers's skills have made him one of the FBI's top agents-until now.

Called to the mountains of North Carolina to consult on a gruesome murder, Bowers finds himself in a deadly duel with a serial killer who seems to transcend Patrick's analytical powers. Forced to track the killer's horrific murders one by one, Bowers finds his techniques and instincts are put to the ultimate test...


Click HERE for the free book.