Does anyone have any experience with the Nook in Japan? Trying to figure out if they will work over there. We have them registered in the states with a debit card with and US address.. will we be able to buy books on line with our US debit card and download them to our nook in Japan?

Unfortunately you cant buy books directly from the B&N site here in Japan. Just like Netflix or certain other commercial websites, it looks at your IP to determine where you are. Since there is no B&N here in japan and there is a lot of copyright stuff, they tell you that you aren't in an area that is allowed to do that. You can set your network up behind a VPN or a proxy server and it should work.

Hi, We recently ran into this issue...my husband bought my daughter one in the states and brought it back for her. The salesman told him it would work in Japan...not exactly true!! You can download anything that is free...but if you have to buy it you either have to have a proxy on your computer (like hide-my-ip) or since we don't have that, we'll have my sister in the states get on the BN account and buy the book (with my cc that is on there) then we can go on our account from here and download it. So, it can be done, but it isn't easy. The wifi works fine. I wish it worked better over here! But I guess my daughter doesn't buy too many books so it isn't too big of an issue for us. Basically you just can buy anything from out of the US/Canada area. But once it is bought you can download it to your nook.

I put a lot of my documents in my Nook form my computer. i use a program called calibre that formats pdf's or any other kind of non-proprietary document to read on your Nook. I like it and use it often. Also, your wifi internet browser on the Nook will still work as long as you are at a wifi spot. Your 3G Nook on the other hand probably wont work.

This doesn't really help since you already own a Nook, but our Kindles work here. We can't wirelessly download without hefty fees, but you can buy the books on Amazon.com and transfer them with a USB cable. I wish I had more info for you on your Nook, but I guess this info is more for anyone in Japan debating buying some kind of e-reader so they know that Kindles work.

Eam, thanks for the tip. There are many of us on the fence about which ereader to buy, so your comment helps a lot. Truthfully, I love books & I love gadgets, but I still can't bring myself to buy an ereader. For book fans out there, have you found that it makes your book-reading experience better? Should I buy one (or even an iPad), or just stick with going to the library?

Information for Kindles in Japan is wrong, from Amazon concerning kindle coverage:
Japan
To ship a Kindle to Japan you must purchase a Kindle from this separate page.
We are excited to now ship Kindle to Japan. Customers in Japan will enjoy:
Books in Under 60 Seconds: Think of a book and you could be reading it in under a minute.

Free Wireless: Free 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle. No monthly fees, service plans, or hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots. For non-U.S. customers, there are also no additional charges for wireless delivery in or outside your home country. See Coverage Map. See Wireless Terms and Conditions

Growing Selection: Over 710,000 English-language books to choose from; plus U.S. and international newspapers and magazines are available for your country. Because publishers give us eBook rights on a country by country basis, available titles for your country will vary from our current U.S selection. We are actively working with publishers to get the rights to all titles for every country and adding this selection every day. Check the Kindle Store to see available titles.

Low Book Prices: New York Times® Best Sellers and New Releases are $11.99, unless marked otherwise. You'll also find many books for less - over 150,000 titles are priced under $5.99

Learn more about Kindle features on the Kindle product page


Important Product Information for Your Country

Amazon.co.jp customers will need to register on Amazon.com in order to purchase Kindle.
Your international shipment is subject to customs duties, import taxes and other fees levied by the destination country. We will show you these fees upon checkout. Learn more
Kindle ships with a micro-USB cable for charging your Kindle via a computer USB port
You can transfer personal documents to your Kindle via USB for free at anytime. Service fees for transferring personal documents via Whispernet are currently $.99 per megabyte. Learn more
Wireless download times can vary based on 3G or EDGE/GPRS coverage, signal strength and file size.
Kindle books, newspapers, and magazines are currently priced and sold in United States dollars
Access Wikipedia via Whispernet on the experimental web browser. Access other websites like Google via a Wi-Fi connection.
Kindle includes a 1-year limited warranty. See details
Use of the Kindle is subject to the Kindle License Agreement and Terms of Use

HT Guy

FWIW I have have had a Sony eReader for a couple of years and i love it (http://ebookstore.sony.com/reader/). There are a lot of different sites you can buy from so you can actually price shop, and it has a spot for an sd card and one for a memory stick, (I don't have nearly that many books yet.) it also takes multiple formats which is nice. It's got wifi/wireless ability and Sony has a subscription service for periodicals (to be honest I haven't used that, so I don't know if it works here). It's especially nice when i travel as i can bring more than one book along, and I don't have to tell anyone living in Japan about how important space is. This takes up less space than a single book. Money well spent as far as i'm concerned.

As for the other options out there, I don't think I'd go for a ipad just for reading, the size of it makes it more difficult to hold one handed, but that could just be me. I was thinking about buying a Kindle before I got this, but at the time amazon a) wouldn't mail them to Japan (even an APO) and b) you could only buy books from Amazon because of the formatting. I believe amazon has made changes now so that you can download other formats to the kindle, but I'm not sure about the sending to Japan bit. I didn't even look at the nook because it wasn't even out yet.

@thai guy, i am a book lover too, but I really love my Kindle. It's nice to be able to travel with multiple books, and you can get many classic books for free. I am tired of moving and unpacking boxes and boxes of books, and have been looking to pare down our collection, and this was a great solution. As far as the reading experience, you hardly notice that you are reading a screen at all, at least with a Kindle.

I still utilize the library though, because kindle books generally cost around $10. Ipad would be nice too, but I've heard it's distracting to reading to have Angry Birds at your fingertips ;-)

HT Guy: I purchased my Kindle and had it shipped to my FPO address. I never had to deal with Japan Amazon and never had any customs fees.

Thai Guy: I have an iPad and a Kindle and I find I have a lot of eye strain reading on my iPad. Of course, your experience my vary.

Posted By felinious on 05-14-2011 8:07 AM
I put a lot of my documents in my Nook form my computer. i use a program called calibre that formats pdf's or any other kind of non-proprietary document to read on your Nook. I like it and use it often. Also, your wifi internet browser on the Nook will still work as long as you are at a wifi spot. Your 3G Nook on the other hand probably wont work.

I used Calibre for a while, but it was not reliable at all for repaginating my pdf's to read on my iPhone. The ePub's were unreadable. YMMV.

@HT Guy, thanks! That's interesting that it says it should still be free. The last time we tried to wirelessly download, we got a message advising us that there might be additional charges, so we just decided to always transfer the books with the USB cable. I'm not sure if it matters, but we purchased our Kindles in the states before we moved to Japan and they're registered to our normal Amazon account, and not the Japanese one. I'm going to try and download wirelessly for my next book and see if that message was just a fluke.

@ThaiGuy, After using my Kindle and reading a couple of pages, it felt just as natural to hit the 'next page' button as it does turning a page. I don't even think about it. We read a lot and a lot of books are less expensive if they're the e-version. My husband wasn't convinced he would like it, but he loves gadgets and reading so I bought him one and he LOVES it and uses it all the time. I've never had any issues with eye strain since they have the no-glare screen. I don't have an iPad, but staring at my iPhone for long periods of time hasn't ever really bothered me either (yet..).

We've managed to put books in different formats on our Kindle, but it took a little internet research. I know PDF's work with no problems, but we were downloading books in other formats and converting them for our Kindles. But we're geeks and figuring out stuff like that makes us happy.

Sorry, one last thing. We've been able to get a lot of free textbooks, reference books (like for studying for professional certifications), etc in Kindle format. If that's your cup of tea, it's a definite perk. I'd imagine that's the same for all e-readers, though.

My husband and I were SO anti-e-reader. We love books and have a bajillion of them. However, when he was aboard the Essex, he didn't have room to take enough reading material for an entire deployment. We bought him a Kindle, then ended up buying me one, too. Now, we're both addicted. Yes, we still read (and purchase) paper books, but it's just so much easier to travel with one Kindle (or read my Kindle books on my iPhone) rather than schlep around a bunch of heavy books. It's also fantastic to get an eagerly-awaited new book IMMEDIATELY.

When we were in Japan, we could only purchase Kindle books online, and transfer them via USB. But things have changed, and when I visited in January of this year, I was able to purchase and download some Kindle books wirelessly in Japan with no charge for the wireless connection.

I still chafe at the fact that the e-books are often only a dollar less than the paper version, and sometimes cost MORE than the paperback version -- after all, it costs them nothing to print an e-book, and I can't loan it, sell it or give it away! But we've succumbed to the convenience factor in a very big way.

I am addicted to my Nook but I have yet to get over to Japan. I talked with Barnes and Noble cs and they told me that it would work to download if I have a .mil account. I am wondering if anyone over in Japan have had any success downloading books with Nook and a .mil account

Posted By Carolie on 05-19-2011 5:44 AM
My husband and I were SO anti-e-reader. We love books and have a bajillion of them. However, when he was aboard the Essex, he didn't have room to take enough reading material for an entire deployment. We bought him a Kindle, then ended up buying me one, too. Now, we're both addicted. Yes, we still read (and purchase) paper books, but it's just so much easier to travel with one Kindle (or read my Kindle books on my iPhone) rather than schlep around a bunch of heavy books. It's also fantastic to get an eagerly-awaited new book IMMEDIATELY.

When we were in Japan, we could only purchase Kindle books online, and transfer them via USB. But things have changed, and when I visited in January of this year, I was able to purchase and download some Kindle books wirelessly in Japan with no charge for the wireless connection.

I still chafe at the fact that the e-books are often only a dollar less than the paper version, and sometimes cost MORE than the paperback version -- after all, it costs them nothing to print an e-book, and I can't loan it, sell it or give it away! But we've succumbed to the convenience factor in a very big way.

It depends on how many books you carry around , I guess, and where you read. If you bring the book into a secure environment where personal electronic devices are forbidden, then the Nook won't help.

Also, if you are like me, where you read in your spare time so that books take days/weeks at a time, the Nook save you from carrying a single book. Not a big savings.


About the .mil question, for security/productivity reasons, only approved software is allowed on a military network,and shopping sites( though this varies ) are usually blocked, and you are definitely in violation of security standards if you engage in personal ecommerce (i.e. shopping ) on a .mil network.

I recently got a Nook for my birthday and had the problem of downloading, but then I talked to customer service and they said if I used a .mil address there would be no problems and I switched it over to my husbands .mil address and it works fine. You can also use someone in the states to download books you want to your account and then sync it, but that seems really inconvenient to me.

Yes, it works with the .mil account, also I'm able to use alot of the local libraries from home still where the ebooks are FREE

Posted By chiefs69 on 05-20-2011 12:01 AM
Yes, it works with the .mil account, also I'm able to use alot of the local libraries from home still where the ebooks are FREE

When you say .mil, do you mean the military network ( ie Internet connection from a military owned computer) or a military email address?

We were refering to the the .mil email account.  Not using the net

I have had a Kindle 3G and I do like most of the page turning on the Nook Tablet. - If your used to an Iphone its very similar. I do notice a bit of slowness when I am on the N2A (Nook to Android) side * I can reboot to use either so I am able to have my Kindle books available without voiding my warrenty.
I also found this link about VPN's -
http://vpnfreedom.com/netflix/how-t...-in-japan/

Useful for those who like to use Netflix & Itunes (Amazon as well) as there is different seasons available for different shows depending on the country you are in. (Our German exchange student was excited to watch further seasons of Supernatural here in the US compared to what is offered in Germany. She had to create another Itunes account to be able to download US content)

**To Clarify about the Nook slowness (N2A side) this is in the keyboard area compared to the regular B&N side.