If you do a Google search for nook simple touch touchscreen unresponsive, you’ll see a whole bunch of frustrated Nook users. My wife got the original Nook (the one with the e-ink on top and the color touchscreen on the bottom). She eventually upgraded to the Nook Simple Touch and loved it, so I also got a Nook Simple Touch. Both devices have functioned well for months and months (over a year? I forget exactly when we got them).
All of a sudden, this week both Nooks have had their touchscreens turn unresponsive. Everything else worked—the hard buttons worked. I could force a shutdown. I could get the slide-to-unlock to pop up when I pressed the n button. The few times I could unlock the devices, the hard buttons on the side to turn the pages would actually turn the pages. But the touchscreen responding to touch worked only about 1 time out of every 20 times I tried. This was on both devices.
If you read these sad people’s stories about trying to get the touchscreens working again, they’ve tried just about anything: getting replacements from B&N, trying to get B&N to repair it in-store, waiting for a firmware update, charging the device fully, resetting the device to factory settings.
I did try a forced shutdown. I also tried a firmware re-update (just whatever the latest version is available on the Barnes and Noble website).
Do you know what it ended up being? A dirty Nook. That’s right. Our Nooks had been gathering too much dust and other crap. I wiped them both down with an only slightly damp tissue, and they both worked flawlessly!
Lesson learned! If you have a Nook Simple Touch, keep it clean. And when you’re not using it, put it in a protective sleeve.
