may we please know which ebay.com seller you procured the tab from?
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Nook HD+
- Thread starter alekhkhanna
- Start date
sarthakk250193
Discoverer
Awesome review!!Can you elaborate the heating issue??Alrighty! Picture time!
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.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 -
Sleeve 1 back -
Sleeve 2 front -
Sleeve 2 back -
This is from a private seller who put up his personal Nook for sale. He doesn't have any more for sale. You can see many such auctions at ebay.com.
All Nook HD+ tablets (can't say about other Nook devices) have this issue where they heat up over the lower left part of the back under normal usage. If you have prolonged usage or processor intensive usage the heat emanating from that area increases. I think I exaggerated when I said it 'burns up', in reality is just gets a little annoying for a couple of your fingers or part of your palm to feel warm than the rest of your grip. Like I said, it's an issue with all Nook HD+ tablets and it is not a deal breaker. Heck my Note 2 and older Galaxy S2 would heat up to the same level if I played a game for too long.
alekhkhanna
Herald
Grats again Karan ! And yeah, the battery life is so much better than what I expected. Currently traveling (3rd day of travel), have forgotten to carry the US pin adapter, and the HD+ still has around 10% juice left ! Screen time is approx 6 hours+. Used it primarily for reading comics, some web browsing and around 30 mins of gaming.
if you want to read books (any format) nook HD+ is the thing.
also it plays 1080p movies very well. its high density screen is unsuitable for low resolution videos.
for gaming, check others.
i was seriously thinking to get a nook hd+ as well now. got nexus 7 2012 just a few days back. my father liked it, so was thinking of giving it to him and get myself the nook. however, as soon as i came to this thread now and read your line that its not suitable for low-reso vids, am again taken aback. this was one of the reasons that i chose the n7 over the nook a few days back, as i would rarely watch 1080p vids on my tab, and almost all of them would be 360p/480p, no gaming, no or rarely any comic-reading, but yes, reading a lot of PDFs. would it still be advisable to buy a nook now?! i confess that i expect & am inclined to read a 'YES!'.
sarthakk250193
Discoverer
Honestly i just dont understand the concept of 7" tab.It just feels like a large phone.Atleast 8" is the way to go.And i dont think smaller resolution vids would matter that much.Dont we all watch 700 mb dvdrips?They are not even 720p and that too on a 15 inch display.PDF's are perfect on a larger device.I have tried them on 10 inch tab and the entire page was visible without needing to zoom.i was seriously thinking to get a nook hd+ as well now. got nexus 7 2012 just a few days back. my father liked it, so was thinking of giving it to him and get myself the nook. however, as soon as i came to this thread now and read your line that its not suitable for low-reso vids, am again taken aback. this was one of the reasons that i chose the n7 over the nook a few days back, as i would rarely watch 1080p vids on my tab, and almost all of them would be 360p/480p, no gaming, no or rarely any comic-reading, but yes, reading a lot of PDFs. would it still be advisable to buy a nook now?! i confess that i expect & am inclined to read a 'YES!'.
P.S-If you do decide on buying,contact prateek.It may not be too late.Mine has been ordered.
true! the 7" nexus had instantly felt small to me, though still usable. but the ~9" nook would be great, atleast for home use.
and thanks! will contact prateek soon now.
prateekS
Guide
Error : You may not start a conversation with the following user : Kilroyquasar.
Sarthakk250193's nook hd + is delivered by December 9.(6 days Shipping).
Want one then pm me asap, as i cant pm you, also since the first one hasent been shipped yet, if i order one more, then seller will send them together.
So please pm me asap, i dont want our shipment to india to be delayed.
PM me your number, talking via whatsapp is much faster than pm.
Spacescreamer
Herald
Quite honestly, Nook HD+ is a solution if you want a tablet AND read books.
For books i strongly suggest options like paperwhite.
The sharp resolution of the HD+ will take its toll on the eyes sooner or later if you are going to stare at it for long hours (read pdf indulgence). However, the option to invert the colours might provide a good respite for long duration of reading.
Nook HD+ is a good solution for people who want a 'true' entry level tablet which ll provide a fantastic screen, brilliant battery life, will fulfill the need/requirement of a tablet and ofc will double up as a reader for all the ebooks.
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PMing you my number.
prateekS
Guide
i have an e-ink reader, so that will continue to remain my primary reading-device. however, the nook would be used in case when i need some backlight and to read tough to render PDFs and HTMLs.
done!
watched a few youtube-videos in SD on the Nexus 7 - very bad! not very hopeful now about SD video-playback on the Nook. 
will primarily use it to read PDFs.
will primarily use it to read PDFs.