Friend purchasing nook for me. Should I get anything else?

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I have a friend who is visting the US (I'm from Canada) and I asked him to pick me up a nook. Not finding clear info in some of the reviews, mainly concerned about charging.

This charges over usb when hooked up to your computer right? Just want to make sure it doesn't use a proprietary cable for charging. I read on the ipad side, that older computers don't give out enough power to charge over usb, is that an issue with the nook?

What adapters/cables does it come with exactly? And is it just a standard mini-sub for the charging?

Also, this has a headset jack correct? I've read no bluetooth, I guess there's no way to get a mic working on this then.

Micro USB, will charge VERY slowly using a computer. Includes a 2amp wall socket and special cable to quick charge (still micro usb, just more pins). Has a headset port but does not come with a headset.

I've only had a few mobile devices. I read the ipad can charge over usb if the mobo supports giving out that extra juice. Some mobo's have a new firmware update to enable this.

The connector is micro-usb but just more pins. Hmm. so if the cable breaks or I misplace it no other micro-usb will charge it?

edit: i read a little more and found that it's 30 pin proprietary cable to speed up charging. I also read the galaxy tab does something similar.

Does anyone know if they use the same pin configuration? probably not, but I can get tab usb cables here.

I know you didn't ask for it but I'll tell you anyway

In case you are worrying about registering your device (mandatory at initial setup).
I'm NOT in the US and it worked fine.

Good to know. Thanks.

But I'm more concerned about charging it and relying solely on their cables.

I read the ipad can trickle charge on newer computers but some wouldn't provide enough power. Asus et al have released utilities to increase the power to the usb ports.

I can't post the links but endgadget has an article about it providing links to those utilites. They just talk of apple devices but does this work with the nook?

It comes with a charger for US-type sockets and only if you charge your nook with this (and yes, it is proprietary ) it'll charge quickly. It does seem to charge when you connect it to a standard PC USB port but at an extremely low rate.

On the device Micro-USB (not Mini) is used.

You say it does seem to, do you mean from personal experience? How slow? It sounds like that if you do own one it was so slow you didn't let it finish.

Like if it's 8hrs overnight, I can live with that, but I want to confirm that there is a plan b and not solely rely on their cables.

And as I mentioned asus and others released utils to give more power output to the usb (although these seem like their were only created for ipads). Wondering if those utils speed things up.

for ex, google asus ai charger to see what I mean.

I received my nook Color a mere few hours ago so I can't tell you a lot about its charging behavior It "seems" to load slower via standard USB... if you want to know about the details check one of the large threads on the NOOK and its rooting. I remember reading some information about the USB connector and its peculiarities there.

Ah you just got it. I see.

I found this on the root thread:
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"There are 12 pins coming off the connector. It looks like there are no pins for the standard micro USB portion, only the extended 12 pins. 2 pins are used to bring in +5V, 2 pins are for signal ground providing a hefty circuit for the 2A charging. USB takes up two pins, and as far as I can tell 2 more are for each LED via current limiting resistors. Two more pins go to discretes that I haven't identified, and two more pins are unconnected. I'll take my scope to them when I have some time."

Not sure what he means when he says no pins for the standard micro portion...

Maybe the plug doesn't have standard USB pins, but the NOOK itself does have standard USB pins as well as the proprietary ones. Because I have trouble inserting the original B&N plug, I went out earlier today and bought a standard Micro USB cable...

I connected it to the nook and it said "not charging", so I went out to do some shopping (10-20 minutes max) and left it at 89%... when I came back it was at 93 %.

So it DOES in fact seem to charge albeit slowly.