Android Thoughts - Opinions, News, Advice & Reviews on Android Devices

"The device sold well and launched B&N into the emedia segment. But, using the e-ink display had its drawbacks. Page load times are noticeably slow, magazines and newspapers looked disappointing at best, and there was still a vast amount of information and content to be consumed that an e-ink display simply cannot bring to the table Fast forward to today and they decided to give users another choice in the market, the Nook Color ($250)."

The world is more than Kindles, iPads and cheap Android tablets. Barnes & Noble has their own line of eReaders with their most recent model being the Nook Color. It kind of straddles the line between an eReader and a tablet being an Android based device and offering a colour screen. Does aspiring to be more make it lose its focus? I do think that one of the most notable features of the Nook (and a select few other eReaders) is the ability to "loan" books from your local library.

Yes, that library. While the Internet now gets piped into almost every household and streets everywhere, the Library is still a great fountain of knowledge and has managed to take advantage of some of what the Internet has to offer. The ability to loan out books means that you suddenly have access to a huge wealth of information that does not exist (at least not yet) on the Internet. Couple that with buying books, and Android's web browser, the Nook Color certainly is compelling as an information device.

"We were contacted by a representative this afternoon regarding the alleged NOOKcolor update due in January. As we feared, the news was too good to be true. The NOOKcolor is not getting the Android Market..."

The NOOKcolor and Android will not be teaming up to bring Android to the e-reader. This doesn't come as a big surprise that Barnes & Noble wants to stick with it's own development team. Though it would have been nice to have access to the Android market, but there are always ways!

"In his review of Barnes & Noble’s e-reader Nook Color, Andrew mentioned that eventual root access perhaps could provide the somewhat limited tablet with extra functionality. Thanks to the industrious and experimental gadget lovers at the xda-developers, the Nook Color has now indeed been rooted, but the process is still pretty complicated."

Hacking hardware seems to be a tradition of popular, or even semi-popular electronics. From the Linksys WRT54G series to various HTC phones, hackers have been busy stretching the boundaries of what these electronics are capable of. The Nook Color is no exception. Why root an eBook reader? Well, since the Nook has Android underpinnings, rooting means that you can install your own apps. This is a Good Thing, since the Nook does not give access to the Market. It also makes the Nook a very tempting colour Android tablet. I hope Barnes and Noble priced their tablet so they do not sell it at a loss, as I suspect that once the rooting process is streamlined, quite a few sales of the Nooks will be for non-eBook purposes.

On a non-Android related note, we have been hearing rumors that the Amazon.com Kindle with Wi-Fi may be offered for $99 US on Cyber Monday to compete with the Barnes and Noble Nook with Wi-Fi, which will be on sale through November 27th for $99 US at bestbuy.com. Regularly, the Nook is sold for $149 US and the Kindle for $139 US. It would be crazy for Amazon.com to not offer the same deal on the Kindle, but we will have to wait and see!