Taking a Wild Guess
B&N probably pay taxes in the countries they do most of their business in, unlike some others?
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 …
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.
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?
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.
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!!!!!
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.
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.
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?
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.