Touch Nook STR: Issues, Bugs, Annoyances, and Petty Quibbles

[negris123]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

For me, personally, even a tiny bit of ghosting is EXTREMELY distracting for me, so that picture was very helpful. Thank you again.

It's funny how eyes are. I don't get the LCD eyestrain that many people seem to get, but ghosting bothers me to a huge extent. I wonder why that is...

I don't get LDC eyestrain either which is why I got the NC and have been reading on it for a few months, now, but for reading outside I prefer the eink. However, with the ghosting, I feel like the text is not as sharp until it refreshes completely, but maybe I am just being picky. Like I actually look forward to the whole-page refresh, it's crazy. I would like to have the option of refreshing every page, not just every few pages, maybe if they could make it a setting.

[anamardoll]

Hopefully they will provide that option via a firmware update, but.... For me, the biggest advantage this device had was the faster page turns and the softer flash. With that gone, there's really not a lot left on the device IF you don't care about the B&N ecosystem of book delivery and so forth.

I suppose it's probably still the lightest device on the market, so there's that. But the things that were taken out -- good pdf support being a major one, and I'm sad that the Calibre collections haven't been integrated -- really make me sad. Ah well.

Originally Posted by anamardoll

Does anyone know if the Nook Touch allow you to stick with the embedded fonts that are in the epub? If this were the case, it would be possible -- I guess -- to change the sizing by hand.

We really need an automated tool for embedded font changing. There's an awesome Calibre plugin that will REMOVE embedded fonts, but editing them in a big batch is apparently much more tricky.

EDIT: 'Course, you'd have to change the files on your computer and then sideload them, so there's that.

Just a guess on my part, but the ebooks that are published by well established pbook publishers often seem more problematic than others. I cannot help but think they are still stuck in the pbook era where you had to choose a good font(s) and carefully layout each page to make it aesthetically apealing--meaning the publisher strictly controlled fonts, font sizes, line justification, line height, margins, etc. However, for ebooks it is almost totally different as most of those format settings in most cases should be very generic in order to let a reader (device) and/or a reader (person) render the ebook to their liking. I think it must be difficult for the big publishers to deal with two completely opposite publishing models.

Another problem I see with publishers big and small is a lack of understanding when it comes to HTML and CSS. Part of this is due to their using conversion software to convert pbooks into ebooks. Even converting an ebook into another format using a program like calibre turns out terrible HTML and CSS. A well formatted ebook should use perhaps up to three levels of headings and they should use h1, h2, and h3 tags. Paragraphs should be contained inside p tags and CSS classes used to differentiate between different paragraph styles. There should be NO font-family CSS statements in order for user customization to go unimpeded. Et cetera, et cetera. Yet I often see ebooks where they use anything but the standard tags. Headings are often placed in p tags. That horrible span tag is way overused when it can often be replaced with good CSS. And they should use em rather than pt and px when designating sizes due to the widely differing screen sizes for available devices. In short, the problematic ebooks quite often have terrible HTML and CSS. Both HTML and CSS are fairly easy to master, so they need to get a book and study it. It is not uncommon to see a mutil-page CSS file for a 300 page book! Ebooks should be simple in formatting and if the publisher cannot create a very nice ebook with a dozen or less CSS styles, then they are over-formatting. The K.I.S.S. philosophy (Keep It Simple Stupid) definitely applies to ebook formatting.

[John F]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

Hopefully they will provide that option via a firmware update, but.... For me, the biggest advantage this device had was the faster page turns and the softer flash. With that gone, there's really not a lot left on the device IF you don't care about the B&N ecosystem of book delivery and so forth.

I suppose it's probably still the lightest device on the market, so there's that. But the things that were taken out -- good pdf support being a major one, and I'm sad that the Calibre collections haven't been integrated -- really make me sad. Ah well.

For me, it is still the best simple reader. It has tap to turn, nice big hard buttons, and some layout configuration. My real disappoint with it is that they it's so close, yet still so far. if they made a couple of "small" changes it could be a fantastic reader: configurable GUI (tap on left margin page forwards/backs, ...) more format configuration (selectable font size, margin size, paragraph spacing, get rid of the constraint on side loaded ebooks to main memory, ...

I could really live without most of these, if only they could get the formatting options down. Right now I run most of my stuff through Calibre to get the layout I want, and I would have to do the same thing for the Nook Touch (so getting a Nook Touch doesn't seem like a big improvement to me (I have a 505)).

[EldRick]

To those who have already received their new Nooks, here goes a question. I'm assuming the default is an alphabetical sort (by book title), correct? Is there also a way to sort by latest read? Latest added, etc?

Yes - all of those.

[Joykins]

Originally Posted by SCION

Is anyone able to sync their device with another device or a NOOK app? I don't recall anyone confirming sync works. I've seen lots of reports of not being able to. I'm starting to believe that this feature never worked. Freaking unbelievable if this setup doesn't sync. Pardon my overt frustration.

This question goes out to any NOOK, NOOKtouch, or NOOKcolor owners.

It works fine between my 1st gen nook and my nook app on the iPhone. You do have to turn on a setting on the 1st gen nook to do it from that device--it automatically syncs always on the phone app-- and make sure that you've touched base with wifi/3g before putting down the 1st device and after picking up the 2nd, which is pretty standard as they sync over the internet.

[Joykins]

Originally Posted by MsCG1

I think the syncing issue is a legitimate problem and not petty at all. ESPECIALLY since BN advertises this as a feature. They need to fix it, it could very well be a deal breaker to many.

It took them forever to get it to work on the 1st gen nook, too. Like the 1.5 firmware release.

[kenschunk]

Originally Posted by TimW

I'm not trashing anything. It's not terribly user friendly to lock out most of the onboard memory and make everything in it invisible. ...

My wife and I both have a Nook Color, and I just bought her a Nook ST. As far as the memory setup being user friendly - I think that depends on the user. My wife is a bright person who just doesn't care about this. It holds books, yes? If it becomes full I can archive them out and add more, right? Then it doesn't matter to her.

I know there is a view that doesn't trust anything but their very own local backup, and for that group the "invisible" memory area is an issue. I'm sure there are others that are bothered by this issue because they can't get at some of the titles to liberate them from the shackles of Nookdom - a point I can appreciate. I'm also willing to believe that the large majority of people that are buying these just don't care - it's an easy to use fairly inexpensive reader that is sold in the place that they were buying books at anyway.

[SCION]

I posted this in the BN.com NOOK forum a few days ago.

"What To Read next" on the Home screen needs to be customizable. The way it is now, the novelty has already worn off after a couple of days of owning the device.

In Settings we should be able to check off which ones we would like to see cycled through:

B&N Top 100
New York Times Bestsellers
New Releases
Trending NOOK Books
Recommended
Top LendMe Books
Steals 'n' Deals
NOOK Friends

[anamardoll]

Alas, I've never seen any evidence that the people in charge are reading the forums.

[SCION]

Originally Posted by SCION

Someone posted this in the BN.com NOOK forum:

That's terrible! The word "the" shouldn't even be there. Wow, can't believe that was overlooked. It's embarrassing.

Why does it not say something like "I've read 60% of ..."? Short and sweet.

This appears to have been corrected. I tried a test post. Sharing is posted with proper wording. Or maybe it was just incorrectly worded on the device and posted correctly all along. I don't know.

[rahulm]

Is there a setting that disables hyphenated words?

[cfrock]

I'm holding my Nook STR side-by-side with my K3. They both have the same exact screen saver pic and the K3 shows details the Nook doesn't.

I'm talking really fine lines here but still a bit of a let down.

I've also noticed I have to press the on/off button very close to the round end or I don't get a feedback click letting me know it hit the button. Can anyone confirm?

These are very minor details but I thought I would mention it anyway.
Also, the 'ghosting' is not really any worse on the Nook than my K3. Though I have not compared them outside in sun.

[da_jane]

My biggest complaint with the nook touch is the requirement to use a USB cord to get a sideloaded book onto the nook. I have been using the SD card as a work around, but would like to use the wifi for something other than just shopping in the BN store.

Otherwise, I think the nook touch is near perfect. I'm not in love with the size, but it has grown on me.

I love the buttons that turn backward and forward on BOTH sides because that allows me one handed use.

[Vic333]

The lack of a decent file management system is a real bummer and does discourage me a bit. You would think B&N would have incorporated this by now.