Don't Get a Nook

by Sean Smith
(LA)

I want to warn people out there who are thinking about buying a nook from Barnes and Noble. First off, their customer service is abysmal. I can't tell you much time I wasted on the phone with customer service trying to get that stupid nook to work properly. The reps don't know squat about the actual functionality of the nook. And the worst part is, I had a defective one and they still made me pay a 10% restocking fee to return it. Bastards.
After owning a Sony 505 since it first came out I thought it would be nice to upgrade to a new reader with wireless. I didn't want a Kindle because I already have a bunch of e-books in epub and pdf format that would be completely useless on the Kindle, and I didn't want Sony's new touchscreen model because of the glare. I wanted a 6" reader so I decided on the Barnes and Noble nook.
Big mistake.

I thought it would be an upgrade from the 505 since it's two years newer, but it is more like a downgrade.

The speed at which it turns pages is flat out ridiculously slow, even with the latest firmware update. How can a new reader be this slow, I ask. Some books are better than others but many of the ones I have from places like Gutenberg take like 3 seconds to turn a page. And I'm not exaggerating. Perhaps if you only want to buy e-books from Barnes and Noble it's fine, but most of their e-books are in their own format when they are supposed to be epub.

The nook's pdf handling is a joke, even re-flow is useless because it sends lines all over the place, and this must be the only reader on the planet that doesn't have landscape mode. So all my pdf e-books were useless.


The 3G was broken on my nook. It worked the first day and then never worked again. Only Wi-Fi worked. After several frustrating calls to customer service, and after basically getting blown off by them, I took the nook back to the store that I bought it from and attempted to return it.

They wanted me to exchange it for another one but I declined because I decided I wanted a brand that actually worked without the hassle of rude and unhelpful customer service (after 1 hour on hold on the phone I want nothing to do with you, B&N).

I told the rep that I wanted my money back because I was not pleased with many of the nooks capabilities and their misrepresentation of facts, saying it supports pdf is a stretch of the truth and also saying they have the largest library of e-books is a flat out lie because most are from Google and are better formatted from anywhere else.

But I still can't believe the guy insisted on charging me about $26 in re-stocking fees on a defective unit. He said that they have to charge that no matter what if it has been opened.

F*** that. I'll never shop at Barnes and Noble again as long as I live.

If you are considering buying a nook, take it from someone who has already been there and get something else. There are many better options out there.

Comments for Don't Get a Nook

Mar 16, 2010 not a problem on this end
by: Anonymous

I imagine that B&N might have customer service issues with a hardware product and need to deal with is asap, but my nook is fantastic and i would never buy a sony product. Do they even have "customer service' ? whats the number to talk to a person ? Sony's claim to fame is "quality and brand" which is crap.. their ereader probably has a virus on it anyways.

I bought a nook for epub and pdf capability and it's just fine - absolutely no problems. 3G and wifi works and the page turn is also just fine.
Apr 07, 2010 Things have improved some
by: Doug

B&N has since made a huge improvement in their Customer Service department, and generally there's no wait and the person you connect to is knowledgeable.

As of about today (April 7, 2010), the 10% restocking fee is no longer in effect. You can now return your nook within 14 days for a full refund.

Page turning speed hasn't been an issue for me. There are reported glitches with certain improperly-formatted e-books. Updated firmware is expected later this month, and we can hope that the new firmware is more robust when fed garbage.

The PDF support is just as described in the formal review on this site: "Basic text-based PDF ebooks don't even fair too well." Using any e-reader for general PDFs will lead to sorrow; it's nothing specific with the nook. PDF is a page-layout format and most PDFs are laid out for letter/A4 pages. Trying to fit them on the 6" e-Ink screen is a problem. BeBook provides some e-books in PDF that were specifically formatted for the 6" screen, and they seem to work fine.

B&N's e-books aren't "supposed to be epub", and they haven't claimed that. B&N is slowly changing over from its eReader format to EPUB with eReader DRM. The nook is the only e-reader device that currently can handle either of those formats, so the change isn't a big deal for outsiders. The nook does have somewhat different behavior for EPUBs than for eReader PDBs; for example, EPUB page numbering is constant while eReader page numbers change with the font choice.

My nook works just fine for eReader and EPUB e-books. Is it perfect? No; the review on this site which pretty much says it like it is.
Aug 03, 2010 I agree!
by: Anonymous

After only two months of use, my Nook decided to stop working altogether. I could kick myself for not ordering a Kindle, however lesson has been learned. I'm not going to waste my time in contacting customer service as it appears B & N customer service is inferior, so let's not waste our time. Amazon.com here I come!
Aug 24, 2010 I would totally agree with you, but its not opposite day
by: Anonymous

I dont care what people say because I have had only one problem with the nook and its minor. It just does not change the page number until i have tured the page multiple times.
Dec 01, 2010 multi page turn
by: Anonymous

The changing page thing is because on a pdf about 2 and half pages is equal to one page. The page is going by the pdf.

I love the nook so far, have only had it about a week but its awesome being able to read in bed and not having to turn the page with but a push of th button.
Feb 20, 2011 Love My Nook
by: Anonymous

I've only had my nook for about 2 or 3 weeks but I love it. The only problems I've had with it were due to operator error since I'm still learning how to use it.
Mar 08, 2011 .PDF issues
by: Anonymous

I love my nook. I do have some issues with my .pdf files though. Not sure if its the micro memory card(tried 2 different ones) or the Nook itself, but of the 149 .pdf files I have, only about a 3rd of them show the title correctely. The rest say "Microsoft Word-Document1. I can still view them, no problems turning pages or anything, I just dont know the name of the story until I open the file. Its irritating, but still usable. Has anyone ever had this problem?, know a solution? And to answer the first question....Yes are are all .pdf files, all 149 of them done on the same computer and loaded on the same day??????
Apr 28, 2011 Title problem for PDFs
by: Anonymous

My personal problem with Nook is it insists at using PDFs title instead of file name to display files in library.
That way I have to first change title in properties of Word document before changing it to PDF - very annoying.
May 07, 2011 Don't waste money on NOOK
by: Ramesh Soni

Absolute cheats...my NOOK never work and they replaced it with another unit and still the same problem. My request for a refund was not even acknowledged. Don't waste your money, unless you like an expensive brick.

I have a Kindle too. It works flwalessly. Go for KINDLE.

I will never buy anything at B&N...
May 16, 2011 PDF issues, otherwise perfect
by: Anonymous

I could say I'm happy with my Nook and B&N's "Free Fridays" feature is a bonus, even though I don't really read all the books being released each time. A friend also suggested I "root" it so I can get the most out of my Nook. Thanks, but maybe I'll skip that one.

For me, the only downside is the PDF format issues. I've tried fixing my pdfs with Adobe Acrobat several times, experimenting first by resizing an A4 page to fit into A6. I've encountered several problems along the way, like decreased image qualities, etc. And no matter how much I crop the margin so the whole page could maximize the screen of my Nook, it always still manages to leave out a huge blank space at the sides. I gave up fixing my pdf files and I'm just waiting that Barnes and Noble will just release a new fix.
Aug 13, 2011 And tell everybody you know B&N's f**king customer service..
by: Anonymous

I purchased a Nook Simple Touch by my credit card, but I gave it second thoughts and decided to return it. Actually I didn't open the package. The Customer service gave me RMA number and a return center address for my return. After sending back my package, I informed them of the tracking number of Fedex for their convenience. The Fedex had already delivered it Aug 9, 2011 in the moring.
You know what happened? They say day didn't receive my package on their return center information. What a fraud? I kept emailing and calling(it takes about 30 mins, Not 3mins.) and asked them to check the tracking inforamation for themselves. They already have a good EXCUSE! The representive says she can not access Fedex Website on her compter, because the company block the website access.
You know, it's already passed 14 days.
A lot of cases are found in the Internet. It's really surprising that this kind of company survives in this century!!!!
Dec 31, 2012 100% agree
by: Disgusted

Absolutely - I was given a Nook HD+ for Xmas, as I travel and like to read. I was delighted, until I doscovered that this is a piece of garbage, and the only thing worse than the Nook is Barnes and Noble's "support" for it. First off, the Nook would never talk to my MacBook - it was impossible to move anything onto it, and the MyNook software I downloaded would not, apparently, work with Leopard. I then spent an hour on the B&N chatline with some idiot who ended up telling me to upgrade the software on the Nook, which, of course, I could not do since the Nook wouldn't let me write anything to it. Duh.
Next I took it back to the store, and after an hour and a half of fiddling, the Nook "genius" made absolutely no progress. Now, to me the obvious next step was for B&N to try a different Nook, since it seems that the issue might be in the unit itself. No, all they offered was to charge the credit card again for another unit, while they refunded the charge for the first. Finally I simply told them that I either left the store with a working Nook, or got all my (wife's) money back. That is what we ended up doing.
How can a company put out a product for which you cannot even find the proper support pages? I would NEVER touch either a Nook, or B&N, again. I'll pony up the extra for an iPad, and get a properly constructed, programed, and supported unit.

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