After taking quite some hurdles in order to get a Nook Wi-Fi delivered to Germany, I finally received the device today. I was rather happy that there were no obvious defects (dead pixels and suchlike).
However, I rather quickly noticed that something cannot be quite in order with the Nook's Wi-Fi: The Wi-Fi menu offers only the option to toggle airplane mode; other options are entirely missing. This means that Wi-Fi cannot be enabled. A Google search turned up one case of someone with the same issue who had to get his device replaced. Yes, I did reboot the device multiple times, including several hard resets (pressing the power button for 20+ seconds).
Now with myself living abroad, and as I bought the device via an eBay dealer and a freight forwarding service (with the dealer having the device delivered directly from B&N to my freight-forwarding address, and me having it shipped on from there), I'm in a rather complicated and costly situation if I want to see the device exchanged. I have contacted neither the eBay dealer nor B&N yet.
I see the following options:
- Try and get the device exchanged via the eBay-dealer. I'll have to pay for both shipping the dud back and the replacement, as I had it delivered to a US address by the dealer. Costly.
- Try and get the device exchanged via B&N. Does anyone know if there is any chance that they will not want the device back (accepting proof of destruction instead), saving me the cost of shipping it back to the States, and that they'll send the replacement to Germany? Otherwise, costly.
- Has anybody knowledgeable in electronics ever had his Nook open and can hazared as guess as to what the likely cause is? I reckon that the hardware fails to initialize during Android startup, and the dependent Wi-Fi components are subsequently left out. Is it likely that the issue is merely a matter of a bad connector, which might be fixed? If instead the Wi-Fi transceiver itself is likely to be malfunctioning, what are the chances of having an electronics engineer (at least I'm well-connected in this regard...) replace the module, and things being alright then?
- Cheaply obtain a display-broken Nook (Anyone have one? PM me, please.), hope that the remainder of its electronics are in order, and exchange this, retaining my new housing and displays. Is there anyone who knows wether the displays are soldered-on or just screwed-on/snapped-in?
- Probably the easiest option would be to try and sell the device -- what are the chances of that happening at a "reasonable" price? Without Wi-Fi, the device cannot be registered with B&N (thus only DRM-free(d) books can be read), and it is not possible to gain ADB shell access with a softroot.
Looks like I'm in for a substantial loss in any case.
Obviously B&N's quality control is sorely lacking; in view of this experience, I cannot recommend anyone outside the States to get a Nook as he or she may find themselves in the same dilemma as I do.
P.S.: I think there's a second issue concerning the device's charging: While it did charge for a while, up to 84%, it does not seem to charge any further. The orange LED beside the USB port is on, but the Nook's status bar's battery symbol does not indicate charging, and the charge remains at 84% while plugged in. Device resets did not change this. Is this one of the charging issues discussed here recently, or do the symptoms look more severe (I'm not in the mood to research yet another defect-related topic right now)?
