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back to article Didn't get a Nook for Xmas? That's OK, hardly anyone else did, either

The fortunes of Barnes & Noble's Nook division have gone from bad to worse, with the ebook group reporting plummeting revenues over the holiday period. The bookseller said on Thursday that the Nook unit's sales for the nine weeks ending December 28 were down 60.5 per cent from the same period a year ago. Newly minted Barnes …

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  1. armyknife

    Taking a Wild Guess

    B&N probably pay taxes in the countries they do most of their business in, unlike some others?

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    1. goldcd
      Reply Icon

      According to amazon.co.uk's snarky messages

      If I buy a book for my Kindle, that's 20% straight HMRC in VAT. Buy a physical book from a 'shop' (online or otherwise) and whilst there may be the odd few pence in corporation tax handed over at the end of the year, but it ain't going to be 20% of gross retail.

      Buy a physical book from your local store - you're practically pissing on the chips of the children of a single-mother-on-benefits.

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      1. goldcd
        Reply Icon

        ^^not my actual opinion

        but tax-bleaters really get on my tits.

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      2. Florence
        Reply Icon

        Re: According to amazon.co.uk's snarky messages

        You appear to have quite a naive view of Amazon:

        http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/oct/21/amazon-forces-publishers-pay-vat-ebook

        Based in Luxembourg so they effectively pay 3% VAT. Clearly not going to HRMC.

        Btw, that article is over a year old. Anybody knows whether things have changed since then?

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  2. ratfox
    Holmes

    Well yeah

    You axe the product line, you make less sales.

    It's not like they can do much about it. It was a good effort, and they reportedly told Microsoft to stuff it when it threatened a patent lawsuit, so they will always have a place in my heart for that. But realistically, going up against Apple, Google and Amazon was a tough proposition.

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    1. Euripides Pants
      Reply Icon

      Re: Well yeah

      Its those damn consumers not wanting to get stuck with useless crap that are causing Barnes and Noble so much grief. B&N clearly needs to replace the garden variety consumers they currently have with Premium Consumers who do not spook so easily.

      DAMMIT PEOPLE, YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO KEEP SHOPPING!!!!!

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      1. Professor Clifton Shallot
        Reply Icon

        Re: Well yeah

        "Its those damn consumers not wanting to get stuck with useless crap"

        If that really was the case then fine, screw them they deserve to fail, but what's curious here is that their devices are all pretty good and (now) very good value for money.

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        1. Euripides Pants
          Reply Icon

          Re: Well yeah

          Not really a good value when you consider that the proprietary charging cables are flimsy and you can only buy them from B&N so when B&N stops selling the stuff you're screwed.

          We have 3 Nook colors at chez Pants and all of them are on their second charging cable.

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          1. Professor Clifton Shallot
            Reply Icon

            Re: Well yeah

            "the proprietary charging cables are flimsy and you can only buy them from B&N"

            The Nook Simple Touch that I have uses a standard USB cable.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Going the way of Betamax, Laserdisc and Zune perhaps?

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    1. Haku
      Reply Icon

      Hey, I have a Betamax player, and a Laserdisc player and a Nook Tablet (but not a Zune).

      What are you trying to say?

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      1. ukgnome
        Reply Icon

        That it's time to buy a Zune????

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    My family has 2 Nooks

    One nice new color one with internet, and one of the old B&W ones.

    Both work fantastic, but not near as well as my Kindle HD. But still, very nice. If I didn't have the Kindle, I'd be reading stuff off one of the Nooks all the time.

    Any e-reader is vastly superior and vastly cheaper (in my humble opinion) to reading paper books.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Grab one before they disappear

    I managed to get a HD+ despite B&N efforts not to sell it to anyone outside UK. It is a very nice tablet, decent CPU, great full HD screen, excellent value for money at £149 for the 32GB version. The only "defect" is B&N customisations, but you can always install cyanogenmod. And with CM11 it flies, it is even better.

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    1. JDX Gold badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Grab one before they disappear

      I bought a regular HD one for £80 or something, several months ago, as an Xmas present for the wife. We're both very impressed with it, after an initial panic before realising we needed an update to add Google Play Store. For 1/3 of the price of an iPad mini, it's pretty sweet.

      I wondered about rooting/wiping it with stock Android but not sure what it would gain us on a device used mostly for internet, Netflix and silly games from the Play store?

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Grab one before they disappear

        You'll get a much faster, more fluid interface, but you'll lose the nook app. You can ever overclock the HD to the HD+ clock speed, without apparently any ill effect. For games and browsing there is a small, but noticeable speed advantage. But I'd advise waiting for the CM11 official nightlies, even if verigreen's unofficial version seems to be extremely stable and fast.

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        1. James Hughes 1
          Reply Icon

          Re: Grab one before they disappear

          Bought two nooks - HD and HD+ and both have been great. And very cheap compared with others.

          Very happy - even with the standard OS install which has the Play Store anyway,

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        2. JDX Gold badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: Grab one before they disappear

          Not bothered about the Nook app/store, we buy all ebooks through Kindle anyway. Might look into it once we've properly got to grips with it.

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  6. Neil Barnes Silver badge

    It may well be simply

    that there are fewer and fewer people for whom the advantages of a dedicated ebook reader - long battery life, better display, and light weight - outweigh the disadvantages of carrying a phone *and* a reader.

    I suspect that the number of people who read whenever they have a moment, rather than diving into social media or games, and who don't already have a smartphone or slab, are decreasing daily.

    I may be the only one...

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  7. Dan 55 Silver badge

    I've got a Simple Touch and a HD. The Simple Touch is doing what it's designed for whereas the HD was wiped and had Cyanogenmod installed on it.

    As e-readers go I can't fault the Simple Touch but then again I've not seen a Kindle up close, maybe it's better but I doubt it's that much better.

    As for the HD, I'd imagine that B&N aren't really pleased by hoards of geeks axing their tablets them completely ignoring their e-book ecosystem, but it's a cheap yet well-built device so I couldn't resist.

    The only reason they're doing badly is because people don't know the name and they'd probably buy a Hudl over one.

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    1. phuzz Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      I've got a 3rd gen Kindle and I picked up a Simple Touch because it was cheap and there's really not much between them. The brand new Kindles have a slightly whiter screen, but it's not something you'd miss.

      I've not found a way of buying books for the Nook in the UK, but Calibre makes it easy enough to buy a book from Amazon and have it on my nook within a couple of minutes.

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  8. Paratrooping Parrot
    Happy

    Nook SimpleTouch

    I have a SimpleTouch with GlowLight that I bought before the summer. I use it quite often to read books. It does have a few problems with some pdfs that have images. Otherwise it is great.

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  9. Fading
    Happy

    I got one for Christmas........

    Been great finding lots of Sci-fi magazine stories from the fifties for free.......

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I got one for Christmas........

      Seems like I need to sideload the nook app... You got these from the nook store?

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      1. Fading
        Reply Icon

        Re: I got one for Christmas........

        Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Science_Fiction_(Bookshelf)) was my first stop.

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  10. red death

    I've also got a Nook Simple Touch and HD+, both are excellent. The HD+ 16GB for £129 was a steal. Great screen and I don't mind the Nook skin of Android too much (or at least not enough to bother rooting it and sticking vanilla Android on yet!).

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  11. Faye B
    Unhappy

    Not a happy bunny

    Well, as my Nook Glowlight has gone titsup on me after only 6 months ownership I am not at all surprised that B&N are going down the pan on this one. The damn thing has started flashing (inverting) at me every second and lost all my books. I will take it back for a replacement but I have heard bad things about their service department and with this news I suspect they will be even less inclined to provide a replacement.

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    1. Faye B
      Reply Icon

      Re: Not a happy bunny

      OK, sort of happy again. Did an erase and deregister (A kind of cold boot) and it all works again. Still it took ages to go through all that rigmarole so I hope it does not happen again. I will have to remember to keep my ebook files backed up on the PC.

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  12. Daz555

    Nook - great bit of kit. People do not know what they are missing. I picked the Glow up from Argos for under 50 notes, rooted it, installed a launcher, and now have a e-reader/tablet hybrid which means I'm able to install the apps from Kindle Kobo etc. Allows me to buy a book from whichever store is the cheapest at the time and play some graphically simple games from time to time like chess.

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  13. Sam 15

    Nook like your Money

    I've been chasing Nook for a refund since May 2013 - they apologise, promise to pay up, nothing happens.

    Chase them again, rinse & repeat.

    Not a firm I'd choose to deal with.

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  14. Rob Thorley

    I bought a Nook HD+ off eBay and it's waiting for me at home.

    I got a Simple Touch last year for £29 and it is superb - looking forward to seeing how they went about the HD+

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  15. Mike Perrin
    Happy

    They have a wonderful product - and they messed it up

    I saw the June announcement they were getting out of the tablet market, but I missed the followup:

    "On August 20, 2013 CNET reports B&N reversing the decision to eliminate the Color Nook devices:[14]

    "The bookseller will continue to design and make Nook color devices, with at least one new Nook set for the holiday season, as its chairman shelves a bid to buy the retail side. (Wikipedia)"

    I didn't know that, and I'm an HD+ owner, so perhaps the general public are the same?

    Joining in the chorus: HD+ is an Retina iPad for £130 (16gb, from Sainsburys online) with one extra feature - AN SD CARD SLOT SO YOU CAN ADD STORAGE. Shout it from the rooftops, for gawds sake. A 32gb card holds lots of music, and the HD+ plays FLAC.

    Remember to get ES File Explorer from the Google Play store to make the defective built-in bluetooth work properly and give complete command over the file system. HD+ FTW!

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  16. Stratman

    Another happy user

    I bought a Simple Touch when the price dropped to less than £40 and am very happy with it.

    It does what it's supposed to (apart from embedded pdf images) without drama.

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  17. Dick Emery

    Advised my father to get a Nook HD

    No regrets yet. It's small and light enough to hold for long periods. It has a great display. Latest firmware gives you the Play store. It has a rubberised casing as he often falls asleep in the chari/bed and drops it to the ground so it survives those knocks easily. Runs rather speadily too for what it does. Oh and it was cheap!

    But again it's all about marketing so Amazon steals all the glory.

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