Nook GL memory restrictions - unacceptable!

[Xen]

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[toddos]

Nope, you got it exactly right. To be fair, the NST and NST with GL both did exactly the same thing, as did the tablets. But those have SD card expansion and Barnes and Noble eventually created a program to reduce the reserved space if you took your device into a store. The new Nook GL is worse than that because it has no SD card option. And of course it makes it very clear that B&N doesn't care about its customers.

[Tony1988]

Originally Posted by Xen

I was looking at the specs on the new GL and found this in the fine print:

(About available on-board memory - btw the GL doesn't seem to take SD cards):

4GB: 2.5GB for content, of which 2GB is reserved for NOOK Store content. Actual formatted capacity may be less. 1GB=1 billion bytes.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Am I reading that correctly? Is the usable memory on the Nook GL 500MB max? Actually, LESS than 500 MB because they don't tell you how much you are losing to formatting ... Because none of my current e-books are "Nook store content" and I wouldn't be planning on adding much from that source.

Please tell me I'm misunderstanding something ... because that looks just ludicrous

What are you so angry about? You stated in another thread that you are not a fan of lighted ereaders and use a pen light. But here you are ranting about the glowlight. lol Its pretty old news about the glowlights memory. If was already pretty much talked to death in several threads. Most people wont care about the memory who buy the nook because like kindle buyers they will probably be brand loyal or they just wont care. Plus you can still put several hundred of non nook books on the device. I am sure though they will correct this in the future. Just get a nook simple touch.

[bgalbrecht]

To be fair to B&N, Amazon hasn't put an SD card in any recent Kindle, including both Paperwhites either. Quite frankly, B&N's target market is not the ebook collector who buys hundreds (thousands) of ebook, like me. Am I disappointed in the new reader? Yes. Will I buy the new one? Absolutely not. Complaining about it here isn't going to make a difference, but sending a letter (via snail mail) to the CEO might, especially if several hundred people did.

[toddos]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

To be fair to B&N, Amazon hasn't put an SD card in any recent Kindle, including both Paperwhites either. Quite frankly, B&N's target market is not the ebook collector who buys hundreds (thousands) of ebook, like me. Am I disappointed in the new reader? Yes. Will I buy the new one? Absolutely not. Complaining about it here isn't going to make a difference, but sending a letter (via snail mail) to the CEO might, especially if several hundred people did.

Amazon also doesn't partition their internal space into "reserved for Amazon" and "available to you" sections. The 2GB (minus overhead for the system, leaving about 1.25GB) of space on a KPW is available for anything to use, vs. the Barnes & Noble approach where out of the ~3GB available for content, 2.5GB of those are reserved purely for B&N content.

[Mellobob]

I'm not going to be buying a new nook from B&N. I think later this year I will be looking ... but probably for a Kobo.

[Xen]

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[Calenorn]

Originally Posted by Xen

I was looking at the specs on the new GL and found this in the fine print:

(About available on-board memory - btw the GL doesn't seem to take SD cards):

4GB: 2.5GB for content, of which 2GB is reserved for NOOK Store content. Actual formatted capacity may be less. 1GB=1 billion bytes.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Am I reading that correctly? Is the usable memory on the Nook GL 500MB max? Actually, LESS than 500 MB because they don't tell you how much you are losing to formatting ... Because none of my current e-books are "Nook store content" and I wouldn't be planning on adding much from that source.

Please tell me I'm misunderstanding something ... because that looks just ludicrous

No, you're seeing the true picture.

On the other hand, the old Simple Touch is dirt cheap right now, and an inexpensive microSD memory card will turn it into a side-loading monster machine! Grab one while they're still available.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by Calenorn

No, you're seeing the true picture.

On the other hand, the old Simple Touch is dirt cheap right now, and an inexpensive microSD memory card will turn it into a side-loading monster machine! Grab one while they're still available.

Yes the NST is great, if you don't care about a light or the size of the thing. Root it with Nook Manager and you will be delirious about it! You can get Nook Manager at XDA. It is fantastic, and was very easy to do.

[Rich_D]

It will keep me from getting the new nook, but it wouldn't bother my wife. She's all about convenience and gets all her books from B&N, mostly the Free Friday offerings. Once she reads a book, she's done with it. When it's time for me to get a new reader, I'll probably be going back to the simple touch without a light or jumping ship to a Kobo.

[usenothing]

e, we all have the same problem.
I am a fan of NOOK, reluctantly. I have NOOK 1, and got a New NOOK GL without knowing the lack of SD slot and only less than 500M to be used!
More than that , I cannot read epub books with fonts embeded.
I am not in US. and inconvient to give the NOOK back to B&N.
So, what i have to do is Emailing the service contact , two days one time.
The answer makes me despaied.
Emmm, we , we wait for the Rooting result ?!

[NickyWithNook]

I just got one! I'm happy to use it just for B&N content so I don't mind that restriction. Otherwise, there's always the option of keeping books in calibre and just putting the ones you're interested in reading at that time on it, and taking books off after you've read them.

I do think it was a bad decision to do away with the SD slot though.

[Katy Did]

Originally Posted by toddos

Amazon also doesn't partition their internal space into "reserved for Amazon" and "available to you" sections. The 2GB (minus overhead for the system, leaving about 1.25GB) of space on a KPW is available for anything to use, vs. the Barnes & Noble approach where out of the ~3GB available for content, 2.5GB of those are reserved purely for B&N content.

But to be fair, Amazon's format is proprietary, so for the huge majority of users that entire 1.25GB on a Paperwhite is reserved exclusively for Amazon books. Whereas since the Nook supports epub, it's quite easy even for novice users to buy ebooks from other sources and to sideload them. I'd guess that this is why B&N are restricting the space: their 'walled garden' isn't quite as secure as Amazon's, given that they can't depend on the format itself to prevent people buying elsewhere. And sure, this isn't a factor for the majority of us here, who know how to convert between formats, but we're a very small section of ebook buyers. I do disagree with the limitation on principle, but I also don't think Amazon has some kind of moral high ground on this one: if anything, their restrictions are even worse.

While, as I said, I disagree with the limitation, I can't say that it'll really affect me in practice. I'm a big reader, but even then, having 200 books on my e-reader would be enough to last me for at least a year, I should think! I suspect that's true for most people. I'm more annoyed by the lack of page turn buttons and just the general sense that the Nook is losing all the things which distinguished it from other e-readers.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Katy Did

But to be fair, Amazon's format is proprietary, so for the huge majority of users that entire 1.25GB on a Paperwhite is reserved exclusively for Amazon books. Whereas since the Nook supports epub, it's quite easy even for novice users to buy ebooks from other sources and to sideload them. I'd guess that this is why B&N are restricting the space: their 'walled garden' isn't quite as secure as Amazon's, given that they can't depend on the format itself to prevent people buying elsewhere. And sure, this isn't a factor for the majority of us here, who know how to convert between formats, but we're a very small section of ebook buyers. I do disagree with the limitation on principle, but I also don't think Amazon has some kind of moral high ground on this one: if anything, their restrictions are even worse.

While, as I said, I disagree with the limitation, I can't say that it'll really affect me in practice. I'm a big reader, but even then, having 200 books on my e-reader would be enough to last me for at least a year, I should think! I suspect that's true for most people. I'm more annoyed by the lack of page turn buttons and just the general sense that the Nook is losing all the things which distinguished it from other e-readers.

I think most of the people who can't figure out how to shift formats also can't figure out how to sideload. And most people, period, just don't bother to do either, whether they can or not.

[Katy Did]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I think most of the people who can't figure out how to shift formats also can't figure out how to sideload. And most people, period, just don't bother to do either, whether they can or not.

True enough, probably on both counts. My point really was just that saying Amazon is generous enough not to partition the PW's internal space is misleading; no, they don't partition that space, they simply allocate all of it to Kindle books. If you want to sideload you have to work around their restrictions. B & N at least do allocate 500MB specifically for sideloaded books, and you don't even need to do anything potentially illegal to make use of it.

That said, on thinking about it I've changed my mind a little on the theory that B & N might have reduced the space to discourage sideloading. If they really wanted to do that it would make more sense to reduce the space to 50MB, or even less; saying you can "only" sideload hundreds of books isn't going to make any difference to most people. Perhaps they just decided there wasn't the demand for the SD card slot, or they were just trying to further imitate the Kindle...