

Introducing Nook, the most advanced ebook reader - scapegraced
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/index.asp?r=1&cm_mmc=Member-_-Merch-_-091020_MM01_Device1-_-na

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martingordon
I bought a refurb Kindle 2 29 days ago and am a click away from returning it
and pre-ordering a Nook. I haven't bought any books on the Kindle yet (I'm
working through a copy of Atlas Shrugged I downloaded, a book I own and isn't
available in Kindle format), but it struck me that if I had, those books would
be completely useless on the new reader and not only that, I can't sell them
or give them away.

The publishers are going to go through the same process the music industry
went through for 7-10 years and hopefully we'll eventually have DRM free
books. The difference between books and music is that while someone might want
to listen to a particular song out of their thousand song library at any given
time, it's much more unlikely that someone would like that kind of random
access to their books. I just hope DRM will only be an annoyance and won't
sabotage eBook reader adoption.

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aw3c2
To me that random access is the killer feature itself. What other benefit
would I have from using an ebook reader if not to carry around my whole
library instead of just the book I am currently mainly reading.

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martingordon
* Size * Ease of transition between books (you can carry 2-3 books so you won't ever be without a book). * Search

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stcredzero
The responsive color screen has a lot of potential. If one could have a "Cover
Flow" style browsing mode, this would make the Nook a 10X better device for
browsing reference material and other kinds of not-purely-linear reading.
Others on HN have lamented the lack of "flippability" in other e-readers. This
could be used to provide exactly that!

(The other thing: will B&N allow it to happen?)

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mattmcknight
Do you mean having the nearby pages in your current book show at the bottom of
the screen? That would be nice, since e-ink is a bit slow to refresh. I don't
see much in point in the way it's pictured on the site though and in the
video, shopping for books by flipping through book covers is highly
inefficient! Overall, I lament the lack of a keyboard. Searching for books
using the Kindle is probably better.

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swombat
That's silly... it would use up lots of battery, defeating half the point of
eInk.

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stcredzero
When I'm using the thing for reference, having only 1/10th or even 1/20th of
the battery power is just fine! When I'm at my desk programming, I can
probably have the thing plugged in. Even if I'm being a musician and using it
as a "starter" or a fake book, I can probably have it plugged in. In that
context, 4 hours of battery is usually plenty, anyhow.

Also, in this "reference" mode, the system could turn off the 2nd display
until it's actually touched.

The way this flip thing would work, is that you would fade from the "cover-
flow" animation to a larger, scrollable image of the text. Flicking to the
side would fade you back into the cover-flow animation. It would be better if
the whole display were used, but the smaller horizontal slice of a page would
work too.

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makmanalp
compared to the kindle, pros: \+ native PDF support (how dumb are you,
amazon?) \+ micro SD slot \+ ebook lending (probably DRM'd) \+ wifi \+ based
on android cons: \- amazon likely has a larger selection of books than BN. \-
no browser -> no free wikipedia, gmail. maybe hacking one on works? \- no
keyboard. on screen one maybe? This makes sense from the initial design
perspective though, people don't often use keyboards while reading. \- 10 days
vs 14 days of power, which is not that big an issue.

I think the two separate screens idea is brilliant. I wonder if they'll
release the source code for the software like amazon did. Though I still
applaud the kindle for good effort, the Kindle 2 / DX should have been as good
as this. This looks like a much more well thought out and complete product.
They even have different covers and rechargeable batteries for it. Damnit, I
was about to get the kindle with the newer reduced price (with international
wireless) but now I have to wait and decide. If there is a browser and is
usable, I'd go for it without thinking further.

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sh1mmer
According to the comparison page on BN
(<http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/compare/>)

BN have a larger selection of ebooks 1m+ titles and more free ebooks 500k+
than Amazon.

Main downside for me is I want something like the DX to read technical books
on as well. BN aren't even suggesting they'll compete there and I haven't
heard any rumours of Amazon reving the DX yet. :(

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turtle4
What is DX? Just a larger screen than standard Kindle?

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lliiffee
Also it has hardware pdf support.

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jsz0
The color screen on the bottom looks ridiculous to me. What's its purpose?
Only to show other e-books covers? It feels like they just wanted to make it
look different than the Kindle.

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turtle4
It is a touch screen. It is used for user interaction. You can swipe it to
scroll through your books, but I'm sure it can be/is used for other things.
Display keyboard to enter search terms, etc.

Apple detailed the many benefits of this when people complained about the
iphone not having actual keys. It makes the device more flexible. Want to use
the device in English and Korean? No need for a different device, just display
the different keyboard.

My only negative thought about it is that the color screen has got to be a
bigger eater of battery than if they had gone all hardware, ala kindle, but I
don't know if it is really an issue or not.

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gbookman
The touchscreen on the bottom and the book sharing are huge advantages. This
is the first eBook reader that I actually would consider buying because of
those two things.

I'm not sure why no one's done free book sharing. It's the ultimate way to
encourage people to tell their friends about the product.

What I'm curious about is the book buying. Based on the video, you have to use
that tiny screen at the bottom to buy books. Hope I'm wrong..

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cppppp
>I'm not sure why no one's done free book sharing.

Because sharing things you have bought is the same as terrorism or murdering
kittens - the ad at the beginning of the DVD told me that

Remember before reading Goldilocks and the three bears to your kid from your
ebook you need to buy an extra client access license and a public performance
license

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cppppp
I assume those of us living in the ice covered wasteland to the North will
never get this.

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Gibbon
I don't see a lot of Barnes and Nobles in my neighbourhood.. so I'm guessing
that would be a "yes".

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cppppp
True - if only the internet was international.

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smakz
To me this whole Nook thing feels like a "shock and awe" campaign from B&N to
take steam away from the Kindle and to their credit it seems to be working.

Personally, I'm skeptical they will be able to pull it off. They have a
feature list a mile long (touch screen, eink display, wireless, wifi, etc) and
I'd be shocked if things worked even 1/3 as well as they are advertising in
their press releases, but I will reserve judgment for when it is finally
released in November.

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turtle4
Yeah, I'm slightly skeptical as well, but at the same time excited, because a
little competition never hurt the consumer.

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ryanwaggoner
Definitely a great entrant into the market, and I'm hopeful that Amazon will
step it up in response. Two things in particular that I'd like to see from
Amazon are integrated access to public domain works (perhaps via a deal with
Gutenberg or Google), and the ability to lend books to a friend. What's nice
is that neither of these would require anything other than a free over-the-air
update.

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aditya
Wow. Good job BN. The thing looks well designed and fairly solid.

-1 on the ATT 3G but you can't have the best of everything.

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terpua
According to <http://mashable.com/2009/10/20/nook-official/>, wifi only works
in B&N stores. If that is the case, it can't compete with Kindle 2
internationally.

Can anyone confirm this?

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lanaer
That seems to contradict the wording on B&N.

“Browse eBooks, magazines and newspapers on AT&T's 3G Wireless Network or on
Wi-Fi. And every Barnes & Noble has free Wi-Fi, so you can connect at
lightning fast speeds.”

Sounds like B&N is just marketing their Wi-Fi hotspots as a convenience, but
it doesn’t _need_ to be their hotspots; any Wi-Fi connection should do.

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cppppp
Yes they even sell this as an advantage over the Kindle - you can connect
anywhere in the world that has wifi.

It doesn't seem to do WEP/WPA so you are a bit limited to connect everywhere

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sh1mmer
If it's built on Android it would be surprising if it doesn't handle WEP/WPA

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technomancy
While they've got a really great opportunity to beat Amazon by being more open
with their content, something tells me they're going to screw it up royally
with DRM.

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andreyf
Both Amazon and B&N are distributors. That means publishers are their
customers too, and they're a hell of a lot more fickle about DRM/no-DRM than
those who buy books... hence, B&N has a lot of publishers to lose by including
weaker DRM than the Kindle.

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roundsquare
_nook retains important reading rituals like bookmarking, making notes, and
highlighting passages._

Bookmarkings seems easy enough.

Even highlighting I can imagine an approach.

But note taking? How are they planning to do this? Notes in books are usually
in the margins and have a line drawn to where the person is taking notes. I'm
really curious to see how this works.

Edit: Spelling

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mapleoin
with sony's prs600 which seems similar you have a stylus with which you can
draw on top of the text.

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ez77
Do you know whether plain text and html files are supported? I'm thinking
Project Gutenberg...

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hiroaki
Afaict, Nook has access to Google Books, which should have a good number of
public domain ebooks including the ones on Project Gutenberg.

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turtle4
Source?

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jolie
Nooke eReader... Nookie Reader...

Call me immature, but isn't it rather silly?

