Dec
2009
I Canceled My Nook Order
So, yeah … I canceled my order for the Barnes & Noble nook.
Back in November I informed all of you that I ordered a nook and I was looking forward to reviewing it for all of you. I knew I was going to have to wait a while before I got it, but that was fine with me, I was prepared for it, but I really couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.
… then the reviews started coming in.
I read one fairly harsh review somewhere last week, but I laughed it off and still felt secure in my purchase. Then the AP wrote a pretty harsh review, but I’m not a huge fan of the AP so I took it with a grain of salt. What I wasn’t ready for was the absolutely scathing review from The New York Times.
The review was so scathing it almost felt over the top, and then I got to to this segment on the second page:
So O.K., the Nook is a mess, clearly rushed out the door in hopes of stealing some of the Kindle’s holiday cheer. “We want to optimize everything quite a bit,” a product manager concedes.
When a product manager is saying “we want to optimize…”, that’s when I go and hit the cancel button on an order. If someone whose livelihood depends on the product, and they are saying that it needs to be “optimized”, they basically have just spoken code for, “Look, we know it sucks and we rushed its release, but it is what it is.”
I admit it, I got sucked into the hyperbole, and even with one friend warning me (Hi, F … feel free to say “I told you so” at lunch this week) to wait for the reviews, I jumped in feet first, and this is what I get. At least I was able to cancel it and I’m out from under what appears to be a beast of a device.
Sorry Barnes & Noble, I thought you had won me over, but then people actually touched the device. Perhaps you should have made no one got to play with it prior to shipping?
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Pegger | December 26th, 2009 at 11:03 pm #
It's a shame you bailed out, Sean. Usually a reviewer actually composes his or her own review instead of taking others' word for it. I would have been interested to read yours. Granted there is room for improvement – no new product is perfect right out of the gate – but I think the B&N model shows great promise. Even the "ideal" device as of late, the iPhone, still has problems in its third generation, and not all are due to AT&T. The vibrate feature is too weak, the mute button is too easily activated, and the sound sometimes goes off for no reason.
The recent (Christmas Day) problems due to volume of book requests (unfortunate, but not unexpected I would imagine) indicate that some people are anxious to get started.
Sean P. Aune | December 27th, 2009 at 12:12 am #
I would have like to have stuck it out, but when you're talking a $259 gamble, and reviewers I trust, like Walt Mossberg, are telling me to hold off for another generation, I figure why take the gamble? I'll probably get one down the line, but just figured it was better spend the money in other ways.