Discount Coupon Offer for old Nooks

[cgsmom]

I still have my old Nook Simple Touch. I was thinking about taking it to Best Buy for recycling. I saw on B&N that they are offering a coupon for $50 off the regular price of the Nook Glowlight 4e when you trade in a Simple Touch, a Simple Touch w/Glowlight, or Nook Glowlight from 2013.

I know the Glowlight 4e is not a great device, but I think I would like to have it to take with me to Dr. appointments and such. I don’t like to carry my Glowlight 4 Plus out of the house.

I also know that $50 off the regular price is not that great because it is currently on sale, but it is better than nothing. It is more than I would get with my membership discount.

Just thought someone else might have an old Nook they are not using.

Update: I just got back from my local B&N. This is not a trade-in program. They are getting ready to retire those readers so they will no longer connect to the servers. When you enter the serial number of your reader you are emailed a coupon code for the $50 discount on the Glowlight 4e which you can use online or in store.

[JSWolf]

I do have a nook STR that I don't use. However, I don't want another nook.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by cgsmom

Update: I just got back from my local B&N. This is not a trade-in program. They are getting ready to retire those readers so they will no longer connect to the servers. When you enter the serial number of your reader you are emailed a coupon code for the $50 discount on the Glowlight 4e which you can use online or in store.

Thanks for the heads up. My 91 year-old father currently uses a Kindle 3 (keyboard) but before that he used a Nook Simple Touch. I think he liked the Simple Touch better but something happened to it (probably the battery). I thought about sending him a different eReader but the more features they have the less he likes them. The Glowlight 4e might be a good option. Something similar to what he was familiar with, but with a new battery, a front light and a touch screen.

I've got the coupon now. I may or may not use it, but it gives me an option.

Do you know if the 4e allows use of all of its memory, or is this another Nook that partitions the memory? (I guess I can look that up, but it probably doesn't matter as I'll put the same books (about 100 of them) that he already has on his other reader.)

Again, thanks.

[cgsmom]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Do you know if the 4e allows use of all of its memory, or is this another Nook that partitions the memory? (I guess I can look that up, but it probably doesn't matter as I'll put the same books (about 100 of them) that he already has on his other reader.)

Again, thanks.

You are welcome. Actually I am surprised by the GL4e. It is a nice little reader. Calibre connected to it fine (unlike my GL4+) and I copied quite a few books to it. When I go the my library on the 4e and select "My files" it says "You haven't copied any files to the device yet". However all my books are there under "Books", both sideloaded and BN books. It does not appear that the memory is partitioned.

The lighting is not quite as even as the GL4+ which I expected, but I actually like the page turn buttons better than on the larger reader. They just have a little better feel to me.

Overall I am very happy I bought it. It is my take with me reader because it fits in my pocket.

[rhyta]

I went to B&N Sunday to take a look at the 4e and was not impressed. It seems so much smaller than my old Glowlight. The Glowlight 4+ has a much larger screen but is pretty pricey.
I am not sure what I am going to do, I would still like to purchase e-books from B&N but the options are not great. Will have to decide what to do. Right now my ST Glowlight is working fine but who knows what will happen later this year when it is no longer supported.

Update:
Came home and took out my ST with glowlight and measured it, it is the same size as the 4e. I think it looks smaller due to the change to all black casing. So I was mistaken. But it didn't impress me enough to go buy it.

Found one of the Pink limited edition on ebay and ordered that.

[_kind_le]

I was looking at some point on Glowlight 4. But for me a dealbreaker was that limitation on a side loaded stuff. Having 32G of space and only 5G for your own files... not for me. But it's personal of course.

[Renate]

Sigh. I've been over this so many times.
I think that some Nooks (which) have this special "sideload" area.
It was all for compatibility with UMS.
Just don't use UMS. Ever. For any reason.
Just put your stuff in /sdcard and tell your reader to look there.

I've got enough NSTs, two, I think.
If I could apply two coupons (but I probably can't) that would be $100.
OTOH, I already have an Glow '21 (6") that I don't use at all.
I have a Glow 3 (black) that is the wall clock.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Renate

Sigh. I've been over this so many times.
I think that some Nooks (which) have this special "sideload" area.
It was all for compatibility with UMS.
Just don't use UMS. Ever. For any reason.
Just put your stuff in /sdcard and tell your reader to look there.

As far as I know and I've done a fair amount of research on it over the years, with USBMS/UMS, the only technical reason for splitting the available storage so that only a small fraction is available for sideloaded books would be if you have enough storage that you are exceeding the maximum size for a FAT32 partition (2TB with 512 byte sectors).

Considering that Kobo and Amazon do not seem to have the same issue with their eInk ereaders, trying to blame it on technical reasons is more than a bit disingenuous.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Considering that Kobo and Amazon do not...

Whatever. Maybe B&N is the most evil company in corporate history. I don't care.

Some (which?) B&N used "spsd" (corrected) which was a pre-allocated nested file system for sideloads as they wanted the sideloads to be separate. To circumvent this you just needed to delete this file and use ADB to put your stuff with all the other stuff. You could also just resize this yourself. As in any partitioning (or sub-partitioning) a size had to be decided.

[cgsmom]

Originally Posted by _kind_le

I was looking at some point on Glowlight 4. But for me a dealbreaker was that limitation on a side loaded stuff. Having 32G of space and only 5G for your own files... not for me. But it's personal of course.

Where are you getting the information that the GL4 is partitioned? The website says “ 32GB memory: 29.1 GB for NOOK Store content and side-loaded content”. I don’t have the Glowlight 4, but I can say that the 4e is NOT partitioned.

[jviscosi]

Originally Posted by cgsmom

Where are you getting the information that the GL4 is partitioned? The website says “ 32GB memory: 29.1 GB for NOOK Store content and side-loaded content”. I don’t have the Glowlight 4, but I can say that the 4e is NOT partitioned.

I have a GL4 and the last time I plugged it into Calibre (it's been a while) it was partitioned. Not that this bothered me, as even with the partition I'm nowhere near filling it up, and I just use the GL4 for traveling so I don't put all my books on it anyway.

I also have a GL4+ and that one was not partitioned, the last time I checked, so maybe they gave up on the partitioning again after the GL4.

Incidentally, both GLs display their loaded books MUCH faster in Calibre than my InkBook, which also runs Android, is also 32GB, is also a USB-C connection, and is not partitioned, so whatever B&N is doing with the file system seems to make it a lot speedier where Calibre is concerned.

[Renate]

Ok, the Glow '21 (Glow4 Gentoo) does use /data/media/0/spsd
Three shell scripts are used for this:

• /system/bin/initial_usb_mass.sh
• /system/bin/ums_open_resize.sh
• /system/bin/ums_close_resize.sh

So, apparently this stuff can grow, so you've got no real limitation.

You can do a mount command:

$ mount
...
/dev/loop0                   5232656      52   5232604   1% /mnt/media_rw/spsd
...

The default is 5G. You can delete spsd, fine-tune initial_usb_mass.sh and have whatever size you want. Down to almost nothing is easy. Removing it entirely takes some cleaning.

My advice (as always) shun UMS.

[Tarana]

Thanks for the tip. I'll have to search in my drawers for my defunct Glolight (replaced with a Glo3) to trade. Love my buttons and currently easier to use than my kindles. Injured right arm/hand but can use left buttons to operate.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Tarana

Injured right arm/hand but can use left buttons to operate.

Get a Bluetooth clicker.

[Tarana]

I should. I wanted to add that I entered my HD+ for the coupon. You can use the coupon for either the ereader or tablet.