Barnes & Noble's Nook now sold out for the holidays
Hoping to put your hands on a Nook this holiday season? Here's hoping you got in the door early, because bookseller Barnes & Noble claims that the Kindle-competitor has sold out for anyone hoping to gift the thing this year. According to the New York Times, B&N says pre-orders on the device have exceeded its expectations, and the well has now run dry on forthcoming stock. To make up for the loss, the seller is offering placeholder certificates for buyers, with a promise that the next round of devices will be shipping out around January 4th. Are suburban moms to blame? Only B&N knows for sure.























It looks quite plasticy I wouldn't get it. But they did a good job on the colour LCD.
@MoonWalkerCTE I did it all for the Nook.
@Banksta3
Nice reference to a crap song.
@Banksta3
That song is old and never was my favorite.
I just saw this device at a barnes and noble.. it is very attractive.. although the color screen had a small lag..
You wouldn't get it because it's plasticy? Find me an ebook reader that *isn't* made out of plastic, and isn't a MBP.
@nerdtalker "Find me an ebook reader that *isn't* made out of plastic" -- my Sony Reader's body is metal.
You're quite plasticy.
We ordered 2 each... Now if we could just get a definite ship/arrival date.
eBay?
When you get yours, let me know if the refresh rate is good enough for ASCII porn.
I want to read some reviews first. It would have to be pretty solid to stop me from lusting after the Alex.
If the Alex has Android Market then along with my Palm Pre I would have the best of 3 worlds.
Well if they only manufactured a few hundred demand was bound to exceed stock. Still waiting on the infringement issue though
SOLD OUT?!?!?!?! That's amazing! Great job B&N!
It appears Joshua was correct ;)
I'm not sure how Joshua's managed to think correctly enough to predict the future, what with his excruciatingly tight pants and all.
But what was the production run?
Yes.
@coffeecharity We know that one promo for the nook was a free copy of 'The Tipping Point' for the first 10,000 customers so it is well into the thousands.
I'd like some nook.
I want it
The new comment system with its dual username reply issue is more confusing than the last one. Engadget Vista looks nice, but I’m looking forward to Engadget 7!
LOL
We're working on the comments. We're doing everything we can to correct the bugs. It's not permanently like this, just a minor hiccup.
@Joshua Topolsky
Instead of just using the Twitter-like @ replies, why not just go with a full on threaded version? Would make more sense and make it easier to read, in my opinion.
Also the ENORMOUS header fonts (NAME posted NOV XX 2012fff 2:15PM) make reading the actual comment a strain on the eyes. Your focus keeps bouncing upwards.
@Josh Because comments like this would lead to nested reply hell, which isn't very fun.
@Josh Well, at least he's working on it. Go look at Gizmodo. That sites' a mess.
Nothing like getting a shiny new placeholder certificate for Christmas ..
"IOU One Gift"
Love Me
Meh, until they release how many units they had (which they won't), it will be like the inital release of the Kindle where it was perpetually sold out but you never knew how big the demand was. Once these get in stores, that's when you might have the suburban mom effect... right now it is just the geeks buying them.
As a Kindle owner (and previous Libre owner), I'm leery of the colour screen down there as a distraction unless it can be switched off while actually reading a book.
@runciter
The expert on nook sales has spoken. Market research and insider B&N info clearly shows that it is geeks and not suburban moms buying the thing. You engadget nerds can quit yer speculatin' now.
Yes, the color screen seems to go off after an amount of time (I think one of the photos from the press event showed the eInk screen on with the bottom part off). At any rate, it seems when you're actually in a book, it's just black-text-on-white menus, anyway, and not the colored home screen.
When the nook was first announced, I asked a B&N representative on Twitter that exact question regarding the LCD touchscreen. He confirmed that it does indeed turn off while reading.
http://twitter.com/BNBuzz/status/5178729650
Glad I got my fuckin order in last week for shipment a week before Xmas. I'd be pissed if I waited until now. 10 days before release and already sold out until the end of the year. The limited stock that becomes available in store may cause shootouts in many B&Ns across the US.
Wow I didn't realize it even went on sale.. I was at B&N yesterday and I noticed outside they had a bunch of nook advertising still in the clear wrapping.
@Joshua Topolsky
Well, I for once vote to make it more like Google Wave.. Now that would be a great comment section.
Oh, liked how now we can't downrank or uprank your comments. Nice move.
/s
Nice account pic ... poop chef indeed.
everybody hates a scalper. ebay for $60,000 in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
I wish it had a browser...
@Imtiyaz Maredia
It's a reader ... for ebooks. I wish I had a fuckin computer that had a browser.
@Imaredia
NO ... you don't!
I don't necessarily want a browser, but Wikipedia integration would be nice. Depending on the book I'm reading, Wikipedia could be well used.
All this work and no edit button. Nice.
And no threading, and it just dropped one of my comments just like the old system.
i'm really tired of these marketing tricks, B&N probably manufactured a few to ensure they would be a shortage so that it would make headlines that it was sold out. why havent B&N disclosed how many units they've sold?
Kind of like how the Wii was always sold out, yet I don't know ANYBODY who actually owns one?
Yeah. Fake scarcity is a tried-and-true Christmas marketing gimmick.
Funny. I know more people with a Wii than a PS3. I guess it's all about the circles you run in.
Every company wants to sell as much product this year before 2010. What likely happened is that they didn't want to overproduce least they end up with inventory gloat. Right now, you don't want to tell your shareholders that you spent money unwisely.
Thus, they estimated low and ran their first production run. It is a good sign that demand exceeded supply, for the US economy anyway. There is a tatic to sell short to build demand, however this product is not following those trends. Likely they just didn't want to get stuck with 100+k units that cost them over $100+ each to manufacture.
now B&N should start some international expansion, either starting new operations overseas or taking over existing ones.
Why would anyone want a browser on that thing, what not enough ways to get on the internet?