Nook HD+

sarthakk250193 said:
@alekhkhanna .Hey i need a little help here.Was just about to order it from slidecart but it is out of stock and will arrive in 1 week.And he is offering 32GB for the same price.It seems too good to be true.Then saw this
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Barnes-Nobl...hash=item51b3f91ba0&afepn=5337259887#shpCntId
Now how to know if the seller is giving a new one and not refurbished one??
Click to expand...
So 32GB for 13-odd-grand ? I would consider that a steal.
There's no way to see if a Nook hardware is new or refurbished, but *probably* the old/refurbished ones don't come with the newest ROM/update. And there's a high chance the Ebay India sellers sell refurbs as it gives them higher profit margins. Nevertheless, does it really matter if it's new or refurb ? As long as it works, should be fine IMO.
 
sarthakk250193 said:
@alekhkhanna .Hey i need a little help here.Was just about to order it from slidecart but it is out of stock and will arrive in 1 week.And he is offering 32GB for the same price.It seems too good to be true.Then saw this
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Barnes-Nobl...hash=item51b3f91ba0&afepn=5337259887#shpCntId
Now how to know if the seller is giving a new one and not refurbished one??
Click to expand...

did you see the tagline under item condition it's on top page above price

Condition:Manufacturer refurbished :
s.gif

Seller Notes:“This item is Certified Pre-Owned NOOK by Barnes & Noble, tested and certified to look and perform like new.”
Click to expand...

so it's obvious it's refurbished,,
 
alekhkhanna said:
So 32GB for 13-odd-grand ? I would consider that a steal.
There's no way to see if a Nook hardware is new or refurbished, but *probably* the old/refurbished ones don't come with the newest ROM/update. And there's a high chance the Ebay India sellers sell refurbs as it gives them higher profit margins. Nevertheless, does it really matter if it's new or refurb ? As long as it works, should be fine IMO.
Click to expand...
Refurbs have a higher chance of running into problems later on.And if i am going to get a refurb,why not get it from that ebay listing??Would cost me ~9k.
Its just hard to believe the seller is selling it at 13k when the new itself would have cost him 160$.
The one you received was sealed right??[DOUBLEPOST=1385915793][/DOUBLEPOST]
manucitc said:
did you see the tagline under item condition it's on top page above price



so it's obvious it's refurbished,,
Click to expand...
Actually was talking about ebay.in seller.He is selling hd+ at 13k and condition is listed as new.
 
sarthakk250193 said:
Refurbs have a higher chance of running into problems later on.And if i am going to get a refurb,why not get it from that ebay listing??Would cost me ~9k.
Its just hard to believe the seller is selling it at 13k when the new itself would have cost him 160$.
The one you received was sealed right??[DOUBLEPOST=1385915793][/DOUBLEPOST]
Actually was talking about ebay.in seller.He is selling hd+ at 13k and condition is listed as new.
Click to expand...
No, it wasn't sealed, but the box and packing were impeccable. The only thing missing to make it "new" was the seal. :P
I do have a doubt that the unit is a refurb, and I did run into problems with my 1st unit (whereas the one @phoenix844884 bought is running fine), but the seller was mighty helpful and replaced it. So all in all, even if it's a refurb, it's working absolutely fine, the packing is as good as new, the unit looks absolutely new.
About the price, well, that is something out of our control. I would say get it from the US if you want to save 2-3 grands, but do keep in mind the reverse shipping and headaches if any issue arises.
 
alekhkhanna said:
No, it wasn't sealed, but the box and packing were impeccable. The only thing missing to make it "new" was the seal. :p
I do have a doubt that the unit is a refurb, and I did run into problems with my 1st unit (whereas the one @phoenix844884 bought is running fine), but the seller was mighty helpful and replaced it. So all in all, even if it's a refurb, it's working absolutely fine, the packing is as good as new, the unit looks absolutely new.
About the price, well, that is something out of our control. I would say get it from the US if you want to save 2-3 grands, but do keep in mind the reverse shipping and headaches if any issue arises.
Click to expand...
4 grands actually.If the indian seller provides warranty for 1 year,i dont mind getting a refurb.Since many manufacturer refurbs are the ones that are simply returned by unsatisfied buyers within few days.
 
sorry, perhaps i didn't quite understand, but why not get the 32GB one from slidecart itself, if you are ready to pay 11.5k for the 16GB one? use SBI's 10% off coupon code, and get a 1000 bucks deducted from it, to get it for 12,890/-. since the seller is good, he could assist you well in case if anything goes awry. moreover, he has stated the condition as 'new', with 1 yr manufacturer warranty; you could just write to him seeking an honest answer whether he would be giving to you a new piece or a refurbished one; additionally, you could coax him into giving you a brand new one, writing that you want only a 'new' one from him, and that you can & you will spread his rep on tech-forums if he complies, which, he can well understand, would only help in boosting his sales, and blah blah blah. ;)

P.S. - am presently using a 'refurbished' GoFlex Home. :D
 
Kilroyquasar said:
sorry, perhaps i didn't quite understand, but why not get the 32GB one from slidecart itself, if you are ready to pay 11.5k for the 16GB one? use SBI's 10% off coupon code, and get a 1000 bucks deducted from it, to get it for 12,890/-. since the seller is good, he could assist you well in case if anything goes awry. moreover, he has stated the condition as 'new', with 1 yr manufacturer warranty; you could just write to him seeking an honest answer whether he would be giving to you a new piece or a refurbished one; additionally, you could coax him into giving you a brand new one, writing that you want only a 'new' one from him, and that you can & you will spread his rep on tech-forums if he complies, which, he can well understand, would only help in boosting his sales, and blah blah blah. ;)

P.S. - am presently using a 'refurbished' GoFlex Home. :D
Click to expand...
I refurbished unit MAY be quite old and there is a higher risk of running into problem.Sure the seller is good and stuff but i want a tablet which lasts me 2 years.
Also,i am not gonna pay 13k for something which i can get myself for 9k(with a little risk)And yes i have sent and email about the condition.No reply from him.Well just by simple maths if it is a new one,the seller wont make any profit.And no use buttering him.The tab is already selling well..
 
certified refurbished pieces are thoroughly checked by companies for any defects. some companies even fixes the scratches so that the finished product looks the same as new. if the warranty on a refurbished piece is same as on a new one, then the refurbished product is actually new (open box or returned by unsatisfied user).

don't compare refurb products with what people sell here on TE with 9/10 rating.
 
sarthakk250193 said:
I refurbished unit MAY be quite old and there is a higher risk of running into problem.Sure the seller is good and stuff but i want a tablet which lasts me 2 years.
Also,i am not gonna pay 13k for something which i can get myself for 9k(with a little risk)And yes i have sent and email about the condition.No reply from him.Well just by simple maths if it is a new one,the seller wont make any profit.And no use buttering him.The tab is already selling well..
Click to expand...

agreed; however, i think, here we have competition between a refurbished device for 9k that may run the risk of conking off anytime and will have almost nil support (i presume so), V/S, an either refurbished or perhaps a new device for 13k (a time-limited offer by SlideCart, where the 32GB one can be had for the price of a 16GB one, albeit, the limit has been extended indefinitely now. perhaps those few extra 32GB units didn't get sold off as expected), which, if develops any fault, could most probably be sent to either the seller or some support-service of B&N here, as according to the listing, it carries an year of manufacturer's warranty; means, 9k for a gamble, and 13k for a gamble+back-up. however, as per what Guarav has put up above, even the 9k one could be a good choice. Gaurav made the air of indecisiveness dense again i guess. :p

P.S. - did you get a reply from the seller now? perhaps you didn't earlier, due to the weekend.
 
gauravH said:
certified refurbished pieces are thoroughly checked by companies for any defects. some companies even fixes the scratches so that the finished product looks the same as new. if the warranty on a refurbished piece is same as on a new one, then the refurbished product is actually new (open box or returned by unsatisfied user).

don't compare refurb products with what people sell here on TE with 9/10 rating.
Click to expand...
Refurbished products have a new screen and new exterior buy the interiors are old can go kaput anytime.
 
^^ if refurb products have left a bad taste in your mouth then you should stay away from them.

i've bought numerous refurb items and no one can tell it apart from a sealed product. of course, few manufacturers apply a 'refurb' sticker which can spoil the look. none of my refurb products have broken even once... and they all are 7 years old.

i won't buy a refurb product in india though.
 
The seller didnt reply back.And it wasnt due to weekend.1 hr before that he did reply about stock info.When i asked about refurb,no reply.That adds further doubts.As prateek said,its the old interiors that worries me.
 
Now that 110$ 32gb refurb ebay deal is over,my 2 options are to get a new 16Gb one from US ~12k.And indian 32Gb at 13k.Will go for the new one.It has expandable memory so that isnt an issue.
 
Alrighty! Picture time!

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This device caught my attention when I was in the market looking for a budget friendly tablet that I could use to read books and comics on. I was earlier considering the iBall Edu Slate i1017 which is a very efficient tablet for the money. I played around with it for over an hour at a nearby Croma and came away quite impressed. Yet I could go ahead with the purchase, dunno why. That's when @alekhkhanna told me about the Nook HD+ and I gave it a serious thought. It came out a strong contender in the budget tablet range and I was seriously debating between iBall i1017 and Nook HD+.

In that regard I was simply looking through recent auctions and listings for Nook HD+ on ebay.com when I happened upon this auction where the max bid was very low. I contacted the seller and asked whether he would ship to India and other questions regarding the condition of the tablet. He replied in the positive and I proceeded to bid on the auction. So in all the deal that I got was - 4 months old Nook HD+ 32GB, original box, charger, cable, extra sealed pack of charger and cable combo all shipped to me for $128. If it hadn't been such an amazingly jaw dropping deal I would still be debating over both tablets.

I've had this baby for almost a week now and played with it quite a bit. I tried the stock ROM and UI but somehow it didn't click with me, so I went ahead and installed CM 10.1 on it. In fact I had the pleasure of meeting and sharing my views with @alekhkhanna and @Spacescreamer over the weekend (More on that here - http://www.techenclave.com/communit...y-show-off-thread.57621/page-413#post-1897995 )

My impressions -

Hardware -
~ Lightweight, easy to hold with the rubberized back, convenient button placement.
~ Tremendous battery life. Stock ROM has amazing deep sleep, battery dropped only 1% over 24 hours of sleep. This trend continues in CM 10.1 with battery drop of only 4% over 48 hours of sleep.
~ The screen - beautiful! It' a treat to stare at. :D Only issue might be the native resolution of 1920x1280. Now where do I get wallpapers with that res?
~ Touch response is at par with any modern touchscreen device.
~ The lower left corner heats up with regular use and positively burns up during prolonged use. An issue with all Nook HD+ devices.

Software -
~ Stock ROM is very functional and with third party themes and launchers it can be made to look nothing like the native UI. But it just didn't click with me. I feel as if the native UI should be user friendly enough that I don't have to load up the device with alternate looks and thereby risk making it slow. I tried to like the carousel launchers both in the Nook and Kindle tablets but it doesn't cut it for me. So I am very happy with native CM 10.1 and vanilla Android UI.
~ Same working speed and same amount of 'noticeable' lag in both ROMs.
~ Reading - For books the Kindle app wins hands down in most aspects except epub support. Using the Kindle app is a treat on any e-reader/tablet. For added reading capabilities I installed Moon+ Reader which made my Nook even better IMO. Tons of formats are supported and very smooth reading experience. For PDFs and comics the native reader in the stock ROM is amazing, beautiful even. But Moon+ gave me better thumbnail rendering, list population, better organization, and CBR support (all of which are sorely lacking in the stock PDF reader). Reading graphic rich PDFs was smooth and the device handled it pretty well.
~ Videos - Native stock video player had some issues with a couple of videos, specially MKV files, whereas mp4 and avi files played without hiccups. CM 10.1 native video player was the bomb and played everything i threw at it. The device handles 1080p video without trouble, I could multitask with ease although the device did throw some extra milliseconds of lag when I loaded graphic rich PDFs, comics, web browsing, 1080p video, 3 games, file explorer, gallery, and a drawing app all together. Not bad I think.
~ Gaming - All kinds of arcade games are excellent to play. Only Dead Trigger 2 was laggy. I tried NFS Most Wanted, Asphalt 8, Asphalt 7, Real Racing, Reckless Racing, Reckless Getaway, Reckless Fishing, Slydris, Jetpack Joyride, Fruit Ninja, Temple Run 2, Epoch, Shadowgun, and Shadowrun Returns and all of them played without trouble. I even tried switching quickly between games and barring native loading times there were no issues. Touch controls on all games were nice (not a big fan of touch controls really).
~ Web browsing - Wonderfully done due to the beautiful screen. I ditched the stock android browser and installed Chrome and haven't looked back since. All websites are rendered very well barring some flash content of course. Installing Adobe Flash Player caused minor lag issues on Flash rich websites but the browser and device still stuttered on, never gave up.
~ Video/Audio streaming - As previously discussed in another thread I set up a shared drive on my laptop and installed a DLNA server on it to stream videos and audio over my home wireless network. Through SMB (ES File Explorer on the Nook) I could pull files from the server at a constant 500 KB/s and the video player could stream all 1080p videos without a skip. Not possible to run two streams at once or even stream and pull data simultaneously. Through DLNA (Serviio on the PC and ServiiGo/ServiiDroid on the tablet) I could stream 1080p video to my device very well.

Whew! That's a lot of writing I just did and I hope I covered everything that was on my mind. If not then I will keep adding to this post. Let me know if you have any questions.

Since I didn't see myself using the tablet with a stand and having used stand type folio cases with my previous iPads I wanted to buy a simple sleeve for the Nook. I got these custom printed sleeves at a great price -

Sleeve 1 front -
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Sleeve 1 back -
10omcci.jpg


Sleeve 2 front -
ix5etj.jpg

Sleeve 2 back -
2d0ncw4.jpg
 
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