B&N Chairman talks to shareholders, no outlook for Nook Media

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by DBDigital

I never could understand why they went the 30 pin route for the cable.

Money - lots to be had by selling overpriced proprietary accessories.

[Tony1988]

Originally Posted by banjomike

I think we are talking about different devices. I mean the Nook tablets. I don't see them getting replaced after a year. I don't see many devices getting replaced after a year unless there is a damned good reason to upgrade. Even then, I want a spare cable. No cable, no charge, no device. Fairly basic. As to the cables, they are hard to find in the UK. The 30 pin connector means that no cheapo supplier, even Dealextreme, has bothered with them. I've only ever seen one on ebay in the UK, they certainly don't turn up very often. Nook UK sell the cable with a charger for £10 (they come from Utrecht in Holland, via UPS) but if the company is in trouble they might become even more difficult to source. Hence my remark that this is a good time to buy one. The HD+ is superb to use, but the cable is a pain.

No I knew you were talking about the tablets. But as cheap as they are now, in a year I am sure most people who just got them will get the newest thing.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Good grief. Apple got away with it (and had some reasons, wanting to support both firewire and usb) but there's no excuse nowadays for that sort of thing.

Maybe Nook wanted to used the Non-Universal Parallel Bus?

It looks like Nook's connector passes several signals. HDMI and USB at the very least. Then again, there isn't a good excuse for that either since there are miniature HDMI connectors.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DBDigital

I never could understand why they went the 30 pin route for the cable. Nooks have always been USB. Granted the Nook Color and Nook Tablet had a different cable to fast charge it (the plug was a little long) but you COULD use a standard USB cable to slow charge it.

The Kindle FIRE HD also needs a special charger for normal charging but you can slow charge with a normal USB. Both the usb and HDMI ports themselves are standard.
Nook also offers a proprietary HDMI-out cable adapter for $40, which is probably why they went with a proprietary connector just like Apple. After all if it works for Apple...

[banjomike]

The nook HD+ blurb pretends that it needs the special charger but it doesn't really. It is just rated much higher than most chargers I've seen with an output of 5v @ 2 amps compared to 1.2 amp on my Nexus 4 charger or even 0.5 amp on the thing that Asda sell. The Asda one sort-of gets a charge going but the charger gets much too hot for me to risk leaving it running unattended. The Nexus charger works better, but still slowly. Even charging it from a USB 3 socket on my PC worked, very slowly. As long as you have the cable you can keep the device working.

[selina4books]

Originally Posted by banjomike

The nook HD+ blurb pretends that it needs the special charger but it doesn't really. It is just rated much higher than most chargers I've seen with an output of 5v @ 2 amps compared to 1.2 amp on my Nexus 4 charger or even 0.5 amp on the thing that Asda sell. The Asda one sort-of gets a charge going but the charger gets much too hot for me to risk leaving it running unattended. The Nexus charger works better, but still slowly. Even charging it from a USB 3 socket on my PC worked, very slowly. As long as you have the cable you can keep the device working.

Sure, the CHARGER works. The PLUG...that is proprietary. And without a plug the charger isn't going to be worth much.

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by selina4books

Sure, the CHARGER works. The PLUG...that is proprietary. And without a plug the charger isn't going to be worth much.

Well, I know that! Most of this thread has been discussing nook cables. I'm just commenting on fjtorres talking about the charger for the Kindle FIRE HD.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by banjomike

Well, I know that! Most of this thread has been discussing nook cables. I'm just commenting on fjtorres talking about the charger for the Kindle FIRE HD.

Understood.
On the Kindle side you can even buy third-party chargers to supplement/replace the more expensive Kindle charger.

BTW, the Nook connector may not be the cause of their problems, but it is symptomatic of the kind of thinking that has them where they are; lots of attention to marginal issues and little if any to customer interests.

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Understood.
On the Kindle side you can even buy third-party chargers to supplement/replace the more expensive Kindle charger.

BTW, the Nook connector may not be the cause of their problems, but it is symptomatic of the kind of thinking that has them where they are; lots of attention to marginal issues and little if any to customer interests.

True. The UK site doesn't even list the HDMI adapter. If you want one you have to get from the States. Still, it is a great device.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Tony1988

Why?? That would be a waste of money. Most people don't even hold onto their devices for more than a year, two years tops. If they do its for backup. Not to mention the fact that there will be plenty of spare charger cables for the nook tablets on ebay and elsewhere for awhile.

I keep the readers until they die. I buy a reader for reading, not to be a mini-computer. I have a Nook HD+ and a Nook Tablet (original tablet), and a Sony 950. All are being used and none will be replaced until it dies. My Sony 505 was not replaced until it finally died after 5 years of use. Had I been successful in trying to replace the battery (I screwed it up), I'd still be using the 505 and wouldn't have replaced it.

As for the second cable, I bought one when I bought the my HD+ last April. I like to be able to charge in multiple locations so it was easier to buy a second cable.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Money - lots to be had by selling overpriced proprietary accessories.

Works for Apple --- but not a good idea when you are already having problems moving devices. People might decide not to buy your stuff because of such things.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Works for Apple --- but not a good idea when you are already having problems moving devices. People might decide not to buy your stuff because of such things.

Apple gets away with it because they're Apple--their customers are used to it--and because they are officially cool so everything they do is sanctified. Few people believe that about B&N though I do know one.
Trying to be like Apple in their tablets is on the short list of B&N's suicidal sins.

[5thWiggle]

Works for Samsung as well. Galaxy Tab series has 30 pin connectors and the MHL/USB port on the Note series (Note 2 and above) has 11 pins instead of 5.

Had to buy a new HDMI adapter for my Note 8.0 because of this.

ETA: Anyone have a pinout for the Nook connector? It may not be proprietary like Apple or Samsung. It may be a PDMI connector.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by 5thWiggle

Works for Samsung as well. Galaxy Tab series has 30 pin connectors and the MHL/USB port on the Note series (Note 2 and above) has 11 pins instead of 5.

Had to buy a new HDMI adapter for my Note 8.0 because of this.

ETA: Anyone have a pinout for the Nook connector? It may not be proprietary like Apple or Samsung. It may be a PDMI connector.

It might be a mutant variant; the Nook puts out HDMI video, not displayport.
If I read the PDMI text correctly, the docking station is expected to convert the video to HDMI and the Nook video cable doesn't look big enough to do signal conversion.

[5thWiggle]

It's just a wiring difference between displayport and HDMI.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort

Although DisplayPort has much of the same functionality as HDMI, it is a complementary connection used in different scenarios.[26][34] DisplayPort can emit an HDMI signal through the use of a passive adapter connected to a port that is designed for dual-mode.