Nook Color rooted for Android - Pros and Cons?

[Phokus]

Hey guys,

I'm thinking of buying a nook color and putting whatever android rom is available for it on it.

Obviously, i'm giving up camera/gps/a few buttons, but what other disadvantages are there to the nook color vs. a regular android tablet?

 

[Pliablemoose]

The only downside is that B&N can send an update & it'll take a few days for the dev's to re root

 

[amdhunter]

Friend has his pretty decked out.

The only thing that sucks about it, is the GUI and Browser are just too slow for me. I can't stand looking at it and just put it down after a few minutes.

 

[tfinch2]

Bought one on Friday with a Class 10 card to run Nookie Froyo from SD. It is too slow for me. Going to return it and continue to wait for a decent Android tablet. Ugh.

Android users are glutton for punishment when it comes to tablets. I also tried a Viewsonic G-Tablet. The display on that thing is downright terrible.

 

[Phokus]

The only downside is that B&N can send an update & it'll take a few days for the dev's to re root

Wait, B&N can FORCE an update on a rooted Nook color? WTFBBQ?

Bought one on Friday with a Class 10 card to run Nookie Froyo from SD. It is too slow for me. Going to return it and continue to wait for a decent Android tablet. Ugh.

Android users are glutton for punishment. I also tried a Viewsonic G-Tablet. The display on that thing is downright terrible.

I'm looking at some videos and i thought it looked pretty smooth... is it choppy for you?

 

[gorcorps]

Wait, B&N can FORCE an update on a rooted Nook color? WTFBBQ?

Unless they changed it from the other Nooks, they don't force the update. It's up to you when/if you want to update.

 

[anxi80]

Wait, B&N can FORCE an update on a rooted Nook color? WTFBBQ?

Yes, and it causes it to lose root. Fortunately they post it on their website first and by the time it was getting pushed the dev's at XDA (ty Decad3nce!) already had a rooted version of it ready to be installed. There's also a way to permanently disable OTA updates from being installed by B&N.

I'm looking at some videos and i thought it looked pretty smooth... is it choppy for you?

I had Froyo on a class 10 card and yeah it could be a bit laggy. Installed Froyo on the internal memory and it was much improved. In fact it ran great, unfortunately I got greedy and started messing with overclock kernels and somehow messed up my boot files. Restored and after that experience just stuck with the rooted 1.1.0 update (the one I mentioned in the answer previously) with 1.1ghz overclock. Installed LauncherPro and some apps and it runs great.

Another disadvantage though is having to use Soft Keys/Button Savior to function as back/menu buttons as the Nook lacks the physical buttons. Sometimes those apps wont listen but its because USB debugging is turned off in the settings.

On a side note I love this thing, and I'm now going to sell my NetBook as the Nook will now accompany me on trips. Great screen, great battery life and with Honeycomb already in the early stages of being ported over this thing is only going to get better. Great developer following and it seems like progress is happening everyday with it, so it can only go up from here.

 

[Binky]

Buy the NC, root it, install the Zeam launcher, then install the overclock kernal at either 900mhz or 950 mhz (1ghz-1.1ghz if you're lucky!). That's pretty much the basics.

It has a great screen with very good touch sensitivity and the battery life is very good.

It's a quirky little system for several reasons:
1) Android 2.1 isn't meant for tablets, so you ocasionally get an odd app issue like things not fitting the screen properly. Some apps also default to a very small text size that makes it difficult to read (e.g. Pulse until the latest update).
2) It's got ONE physical button excluding the volume rockers, so this can cause issues that are easily solved but the issues still pop up occasionally. It's annoying and there is no perfect solution.
3) It's not nearly as fast as a high end phone, since its using the same basic hardware at a slower cpu speed, but the CPU/GPU are pushing a slightly higher screen resolution. The overclock helps a lot for this. Speed is acceptable to good, not great.
4) The Barnes and Noble software layer is still there. I'm sure this is causing some of the speed issues. Whether the people working on the root issues can remove this remains to be seen.

I don't think you can find something better for any price even remotely close to $250. If you can also use it for its intended purpose as a B&N book reader, then its even better. I've had mine for about a month and I never once regretted buying it.