2012 Nook - any good?

[badgoodDeb]

I’ve picked up a Nook, complete with box which is copyrighted 2012. Alas, it has no charger cable. It doesn’t obviously turn on, though I’m not familiar with tricks to try, for a Nook.

Is the battery likely to be still good? Is it worth buying a charging cable for this free find? I don’t suppose an old wide-style Apple cable would fit? (iPod, I guess. I have that, somewhere.)

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

I’ve picked up a Nook, complete with box which is copyrighted 2012. Alas, it has no charger cable. It doesn’t obviously turn on, though I’m not familiar with tricks to try, for a Nook.

Is the battery likely to be still good? Is it worth buying a charging cable for this free find? I don’t suppose an old wide-style Apple cable would fit? (iPod, I guess. I have that, somewhere.)

2012 sounds like it might be a Simple Touch with Glowlight. They were pretty solid readers. A Simple Touch (without the Glowlight) was my first reader. It still works, but I don't use it much. The batteries are pretty easy to replace (I did it once on a Nook Simple Touch I gave my son). It's a Pearl screen at 167 ppi. I liked the fonts, they were darker than the built-in fonts from the Kindles of that era.

Battery here...

https://www.amazon.com/Capacity-Repl...s%2C167&sr=8-2

The charging cable is just a micro USB.

(I should say, this information applies if this is NOT a Nook Tablet. If it's one of the early Nook tablets, they used their own odd power cable.)

[Joliet Jake]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

I’ve picked up a Nook, complete with box which is copyrighted 2012. Alas, it has no charger cable. It doesn’t obviously turn on, though I’m not familiar with tricks to try, for a Nook.

Is the battery likely to be still good? Is it worth buying a charging cable for this free find? I don’t suppose an old wide-style Apple cable would fit? (iPod, I guess. I have that, somewhere.)

The battery might not be good, especially if this is a used Nook.

As previously mentioned, you just need a micro-USB charger, which is cheap. I would buy one if you don't have one already and try to recharge the Nook. Only if that doesn't work do you need to buy a new battery.

In my experience, I bought a new battery and it only lasted a year. I believe unused batteries age.

[JSWolf]

Yes, the 2012 is the nook STR with front light. It's a so-so Reader. It's partitioned and the firmware is atrocious. Other then that, it's OK.

I have a nook STR and other then the front light of the 2012 model, it's the same.

After having your Kobo Libra 2, this will feel like a child's toy. My First Reader by Fischer Price

[badgoodDeb]

No, it’s not a micro USB. I would have just tried one on it. It’s the odd plug somebody mentioned above. That must mean it’s the tablet.

Any opinions on the tablet? Or should I just correctly recycle the device and consider it dead?

[downeaster59]

It's probably the Nook Color, if that's the case. It was a decent tablet in its day, and the first tablet I ever had. It ran Android 2.2 (Froyo) and was relatively easy to root. Some people were able to install later versions of Android on this device. The tablet has a microSD card slot, but didn't have a lot of internal storage by today's standards. If yours can still run, you may find it a bit slow.

That said...

If it doesn't turn on now, that's not a good sign! Besides, you're dealing with a device with a ten year old battery and an old OS. Finding compatible apps could be a problem.

If you can find a charger cable for not much money, it might be worth trying to charge it and see what happens. Otherwise, unless you like tinkering with old devices, you'd be better off properly disposing of it. "Nothing to see here! Move on!"

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

Any opinions on the tablet? Or should I just correctly recycle the device and consider it dead?

If this tablet is using the odd cable (attached picture) it's better than the standard Nook Color or the Nook Tablet (the first two Android tablets). The Nook HD ran on Android 4.0.3 and came out in 2012 (same year as the updated Nook Color, called the Nook Tablet, without the HD). The HD+ (9"), which used the same cable as the HD, came out in 2013. My brother had one of those.

Amazon sells this cable for $8, so (if it was me) I would probably try fixing it and then never use it. Poor ailing little tablet.

EDIT: Here's the Amazon link to the cable (in case you decide to get it).

https://www.amazon.com/QKILL-Replace...s%2C186&sr=8-6

You might be able to find one of these cheaper somewhere else (even Amazon).

It looks like you can get one on eBay for $5.50.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/31357886235...0AAOSwQOpd~YG2

[downeaster59]

Good reminder! I bought my Nook Color in 2012, but it existed before that! The Nook Color had its own odd cable, different from the Nook HD pictured above but still not compatible with the microUSB standard.

[JSWolf]

This is why calling the Reader and Tablet both nook is a really bad idea. One that Amazon quickly learned.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by downeaster59

Good reminder! I bought my Nook Color in 2012, but it existed before that! The Nook Color had its own odd cable, different from the Nook HD pictured above but still not compatible with the microUSB standard.

I thought I remembered something like that. Now that you mention it. I had to buy my son a replacement cable for his Nook Color (B&N still had them at that point, they're now about $50 to $60). They were kind of cheaply built (I think they looked like the attached image). It looks like they've come up with a replacement cable for the Nook Color (different than the original), which costs about $11.

Why do companies make these oddball connectors and then not support them?

Anyhow, that replacement cable is advertised here...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/27179327463...sAAOSwW41iKhT8

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

This is why calling the Reader and Tablet both nook is a really bad idea. One that Amazon quickly learned.

Have to agree with you there. And then they named two completely different eReaders "Glowlight +."

[nmyshkin]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

No, it’s not a micro USB. I would have just tried one on it. It’s the odd plug somebody mentioned above. That must mean it’s the tablet.

Any opinions on the tablet? Or should I just correctly recycle the device and consider it dead?

A Nook Color, Tablet or HD will have, on the back at the very bottom in tiny, tiny, low contrast, maybe rubbed-off print, a model number. Instead of all this guessing around, that's your best bet to see what kind of animal you have on your hands.

Nook Color: BNRV200
Nook Tablet: BNTV250(a) (8 GB and 16 GB models)
Nook HD: BNTV400

Custom ROMs are available for all so you would not be stuck with the stock OS--unless that's what you want. For all the usual reasons, I don't care to read for long on a device with strong screen backlight.

I own the latter two and find them still functional and useful as long as you don't push them too far. For the Nook Tablet (16 GB), A Nougat ROM is about as far and you can go. For the 8 GB model, Lollipop is pushing it while KitKat is very comfortable and almost sprightly. For the HD, I prefer a Marshmallow ROM because that was the last iteration that retained the HD video-out feature. Works very smoothly with only a power shut-down bug (must hold button until it shuts down). The video-out requires a special adaptor. Sometimes you see one cheap on ebay. We have three of them and only ever use one, so if you have that model and you "go there", contact me.

But as readers, for me, no.

And just as an aside, I love my NST. I don't need anything else in a reader.

[badgoodDeb]

BNTV400. In a very nice case, which protected that model number. Which they seriously don’t want humans to be able to read! So it’s a Nook HD. Box says 8G or which 5G is available to user. (Oh. Yeah, the box has a stylized pic-logo of HD after the word Nook. I didn’t realize it was part of the title.)

I think I’ll look for the cable and see what’s what. At the very least, my nephew might want it; he just resurrected a 1984 original Macintosh, for the fun of it.

[badgoodDeb]

I bought a charging cable (it does look an awful lot like the old iPod cable, though I haven’t tried one in the slot) and the unit charges. I was able to reset it far enough to remove the original user’s name from the login screen. It then began a new user login … but after choosing my Wi-Fi and putting in the password, it says it can’t connect (after it seems to be happy with the password).

Any chance this requires 3G also, while connecting to Wi-Fi? I mean, now that 3G is non-existent, might that be a problem?

Any other ideas about not liking my Wi-Fi?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

I bought a charging cable (it does look an awful lot like the old iPod cable, though I haven’t tried one in the slot) and the unit charges. I was able to reset it far enough to remove the original user’s name from the login screen. It then began a new user login … but after choosing my Wi-Fi and putting in the password, it says it can’t connect (after it seems to be happy with the password).

Any chance this requires 3G also, while connecting to Wi-Fi? I mean, now that 3G is non-existent, might that be a problem?

Any other ideas about not liking my Wi-Fi?

It's possible that it does not support the security protocols (TLS 1.2+ for instance) which are needed to connect to many websites now. This is pretty much driven by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) which restricts which protocols can be used to maintain a secure environment for a company that wants to accept, process, store or transmit credit card information.

There does seem to be a procedure for downloading the 2.2.1 firmware and sideloading it to a Nook. See NOOK HD - Software Updates on B&N's site.