Wi-fi only Xoom available for preorder $599

[JD50]

WTF kind of reply do you want? I don't give a fuck if you got a 1.1ghz processor under the hood when I need to root the fucking machine to use the machine to it's fullest potential (and then look up more forum posts to figure out how to get bluetooth working, or to get flash working, or to get the app store working, or WHATEVER)

I'm toying with the idea of a rooted nook or an android device cuz I'm a geek and am fairly willing to tinker. BUT most of my friends (and all of my female friends) would scoff at the idea of something that doesn't work right out of the box.

And quite frankly after being spoiled by apple products I'm starting to get there too. I REALLY want an Envy 14 but the thought of spending a few hours to get rid of alllllllllll the bloat and shit kills me.

Last time. IF a company sold the NC with Froyo, Gingerbread, or Honeycomb PREINSTALLED it would fly off the shelves for $300.

You do understand that PREINSTALLED means that you won't have to root it or flash the internal memory correct?

And again, I am not the one that brought up the specs, I think you're getting confused. Patranus said specs matter if it's not powerful enough to provide a good user experience. The NC runs Android with hardly any problems whatsoever.

 

[JD50]

Therefore specs of the machine matters up to the point where it affects the user experience, and quite frankly the specs of the CN don't matter to me cuz the "user experience" of tinkering with a Nook is NOT a + to me.

So I guess I'm grouping the "buying experience" with the "user experience"

So what you're saying is that the user experience of the NC would be fine if it came preinstalled with Froyo, Gingerbread, or Honeycomb? BRILLIANT IDEA!

 

[JD50]

A tablet like the Nook Color when being sold as a tablet would have the price point of $400+.

How much does the NC cost to make?

 

[smartpatrol]

Of course it remains to be seen. But even if you look at iPod, it's being replaced with smartphones, where Android already has the biggest share.
iPad is the hot new gadget now, in 2015 it's going to be something else, and tablets are going to be commodities. Then Apple is going to be left with "if it's not an iPad, it's not an iPad" as the reason why you should get an iPad.

True. It's hard to say which way it will go. That's what makes the computer scene so interesting to follow

- It could end up like iPod, where Apple just utterly dominates the market.

- It could end up like iPhone, where Apple owns a large chunk of the market, but Android devices collectively outnumber it.

- It could end up like Mac, where Apple has a relatively small, but very stable and high-profit, niche at the high end.

I can see similarities in all of them. Or who knows. . . maybe it will go a completely different way! Maybe webOS will take the world by storm and destroy all competitors I can only hope!

 

[Ns1]

Last time. IF a company sold the NC with Froyo, Gingerbread, or Honeycomb PREINSTALLED it would fly off the shelves for $300.

you're referring to a hypothetical device whereas I'm referring to the REAL device you mentioned when you said "your NC"

So what you're saying is that the user experience of the NC would be fine if it came preinstalled with Froyo, Gingerbread, or Honeycomb? BRILLIANT IDEA!

It wouldn't seal the deal but it would definitely be ++++ points.

 

[JD50]

you're referring to a hypothetical device whereas I'm referring to the REAL device you mentioned when you said "your NC"



It wouldn't seal the deal but it would definitely be ++++ points.

The device is not hypothetical, the company selling the device with the software preinstalled is hypothetical. Patranus said that a cheaper device (he specifically referenced hardware specs) cannot run Android and provide a good tablet user experience. That is proven false by the NC. That has been my point the entire time.

Until he can show that the NC costs more than $300 to make, then his argument has no basis in reality.

 

[Ns1]

Until he can show that the NC costs more than $300 to make, then his argument has no basis in reality.

I just want to say that pricing a product based only on production cost is ridiculous since a company has to recoup R&D, Advertising, etc etc etc other selling costs as well.

I mean seriously, how do you expect these companies to make money?

The device is not hypothetical.

Does a color nook with android pre-loaded exist? No? It's hypothetical.

 

[zerocool84]

I just want to say that pricing a product based only on production cost is ridiculous since a company has to recoup R&D, Advertising, etc etc etc other selling costs as well.

I mean seriously, how do you expect these companies to make money?

Well Apple, Motorola, and HTC really are the only mobile handset companies that do any advertising.

 

[ponyo]

Last time. IF a company sold the NC with Froyo, Gingerbread, or Honeycomb PREINSTALLED it would fly off the shelves for $300.

You do understand that PREINSTALLED means that you won't have to root it or flash the internal memory correct?

Fly off the shelves? Lol. Only if people threw it. You wouldnt sell that many and you wohld lose any potential profit on returns and support. You seem to think people will put up with incomplete or buggy products. Geeks will since tinkering is part of the fun but Joe six pack and Barbie is going to return it because it's broken.

If there's so much profit to be made, why dont you do it? Should be guaranteed success right?

 

[smartpatrol]

Fly off the shelves? Lol. Only if people threw it. You wouldnt sell that many and you wohld lose any potential profit on returns and support. You seem to think people will put up with incomplete or buggy products. Geeks will since tinkering is part of the fun but Joe six pack and Barbie is going to return it because it's broken.

If there's so much profit to be made, why dont you do it? Should be guaranteed success right?

This is the eternal geek fallacy. "If only they made exactly the product I want, they would just FLY off the shelves!!!"

- if only they made a media player that supports Ogg Voribs and FLAC
- if only HP and Dell sold computers with Linux pre-installed
- if only Apple would release the "xMac", (the user-upgradeable OSX mini-tower)
- if only Sony let you upgrade the PS3's memory and GPU
- if only iPad had USB 3, Firewire, DisplayPort, and HDMI ports

Then EVERYBODY WOULD BUY ONE!!!!

Geeks are extremely bad at estimating what the general public are interested in.

 

[JD50]

Fly off the shelves? Lol. Only if people threw it. You wouldnt sell that many and you wohld lose any potential profit on returns and support. You seem to think people will put up with incomplete or buggy products. Geeks will since tinkering is part of the fun but Joe six pack and Barbie is going to return it because it's broken.

If there's so much profit to be made, why dont you do it? Should be guaranteed success right?

What are you talking about? What issues have you had with your Nook Color? Have you used a Nook Color with CM7 Gingerbread? You can't beat it for the price.

I don't do it myself for obvious reasons.

 

[JD50]

This is the eternal geek fallacy. "If only they made exactly the product I want, they would just FLY off the shelves!!!"

- if only they made a media player that supports Ogg Voribs and FLAC
- if only HP and Dell sold computers with Linux pre-installed
- if only Apple would release the "xMac", (the user-upgradeable OSX mini-tower)
- if only Sony let you upgrade the PS3's memory and GPU
- if only iPad had USB 3, Firewire, DisplayPort, and HDMI ports

Then EVERYBODY WOULD BUY ONE!!!!

Geeks are extremely bad at estimating what the general public are interested in.

It's only a fallacy if what he said was true and made sense. It doesn't take a lot of tinkering to get the NC working properly, it takes about 20 minutes.

Point being, obviously a cheaper device like the NC has the hardware to run Android. The screen is great. It's fast. It's smooth. Etc...

The NC sells for $250 with a custom android build from B&N. I can't imagine it would take much more R&D from a company that has the infrastructure already set up to get this thing working with Android out of the box. The quality of the device itself is surprisingly good. The only people that I've seen criticizing it are people that don't even own one.

Edit - "Exactly what I want" is a 7 inch tablet with the build quality of the Nook Color running Android. Wow, such a geeky thing to want....

 

[Patranus]

Last time. IF a company sold the NC with Froyo, Gingerbread, or Honeycomb PREINSTALLED it would fly off the shelves for $300.

You do understand that PREINSTALLED means that you won't have to root it or flash the internal memory correct?

And again, I am not the one that brought up the specs, I think you're getting confused. Patranus said specs matter if it's not powerful enough to provide a good user experience. The NC runs Android with hardly any problems whatsoever.

Yes, but then again, that company wouldn't make any money doing that and that is why no company is doing it.

This shits like Jr. High economics/business. I really don't understand why it is so hard to grasp.

 

[Bateluer]

Yes, but then again, that company wouldn't make any money doing that and that is why no company is doing it.

This shits like Jr. High economics/business. I really don't understand why it is so hard to grasp.

They'd make about 100 bucks per unit sold at 300 dollars per unit, since the nook color only costs ~200 to manufacture. Their profit would depend on their advertising, shipping, etc. But, they could also strip their custom skin off and leave stock Android on, reducing their development costs to practically nothing.

You seem pretty thick headed, so I'm just going to add you to my ignore list.

 

[Munky]

Geeks are extremely bad at estimating what the general public are interested in.

That much I can agree on. The general public would rather have flashy eye candy and an "idiot-proof" device. But when the Apple fanboy starts arguing that his iphone or ipad is better than a more capable competing device, then it becomes a circus.

 

[JD50]

Yes, but then again, that company wouldn't make any money doing that and that is why no company is doing it.

This shits like Jr. High economics/business. I really don't understand why it is so hard to grasp.

Really? You must've gone to a pretty shitty school if they didn't tell you that you need to know how much something costs to make before you decide how much you're gonna sell it for.

How much does the NC cost to manufacture?

 

[smartpatrol]

That much I can agree on. The general public would rather have flashy eye candy and an "idiot-proof" device.

. . . and better battery life, better build quality, better screens, thinner, some semblance of quality control in their app catalog, better games, not bogged down with custom OEM crapware. . . etc etc

But when the Apple fanboy starts arguing that his iphone or ipad is better than a more capable competing device, then it becomes a circus.

I can't stand Apple fanboys either, but let's be honest. iPad 2, in many ways, is the best tablet out there right now. And iPhone is easily among the best smartphones.

As much as I enjoy tasting the tears of a smug hipster Apple fanboy, I have to admit that they make some of the best hardware in existence. I have to admit their software is elegant, fast, responsive, and user-friendly (well okay, except for ****ing iTunes).

Above all, I have learned that, when geeks go on a long winded rant about everything Apple is doing wrong, and everything their competitors need to do in order to beat Apple, there is a 99% chance they are full of shit.

To be honest, I'm surprised the "I know better than Apple" crowd are still at it. After over a decade of mocking Apple for no floppy drives, crappy G4 processors, douchebag fanboys, iPod, iTunes, iMac, iPhone, iPad, etc. you would think they'd get it by now. If you think you know better than Apple, you are probably wrong

 

[Geekbabe]

the ipad is nice, the Xoom is sweet I'm not going to sit here and crap talk them. What I will say is at this time IMHO these devices cost a fairly large amount of money. I'm lying here enjoying Angry Birds and downloaded books, it's a ton of fun but it's not worth $500 plus a 2 yr contract with a cell phone company for a device that's at this stage of the game a toy.

The Nook is actually a rather nice device, if it came with Froyo, Gingerbread pre-installed I would think it would capture folks like me who enjoy tech toys but who aren't willing to cough up that kind of dough.

 

[smartpatrol]

The NC sells for $250 with a custom android build from B&N. I can't imagine it would take much more R&D from a company that has the infrastructure already set up to get this thing working with Android out of the box. The quality of the device itself is surprisingly good. The only people that I've seen criticizing it are people that don't even own one.

Edit - "Exactly what I want" is a 7 inch tablet with the build quality of the Nook Color running Android. Wow, such a geeky thing to want....

Well I don't have much to say that hasn't been said before. I'm simply not convinced.

All the Android fans and the anti-Apple crowd are acting like the iPad phenomenon is some kind of fluke. Like pretty soon people will "come to their senses" and realize that what they really want is a cheaper Android device. We've already seen a bunch of them, and none of them have made even a tiny dent in iPad's sales, but there is some mythical Android device just beyond the horizon that will finally bring the iPad to its knees.

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[JD50]

Well I don't have much to say that hasn't been said before. I'm simply not convinced.

All the Android fans and the anti-Apple crowd are acting like the iPad phenomenon is some kind of fluke. Like pretty soon people will "come to their senses" and realize that what they really want is a cheaper Android device. We've already seen a bunch of them, and none of them have made even a tiny dent in iPad's sales, but there is some mythical Android device just beyond the horizon that will finally bring the iPad to its knees.

I'll believe it when I see it.

Well then you should take a look at the Nook Color, it will quickly change your mind. If nothing else it will prove to you that a cheaper, good quality Android tablet is a real possibility.

I'm not saying that people are going to "come to their senses" and prefer Android over Apple. I'm saying that people want cheaper tablets.

 

[MagickMan]

"What do you find unacceptable about your NC experience" is the question.

I don't give a fuck what specs are under the hood I just want a great user experience, and reading hours upon hours of forum posts on how to root my color nook isn't one of those great user experiences (as an example).

It takes 15-20 minutes, not "hours upon hours". Read the page, DL the image, burn the card, insert the card into the NC, follow the easy step-ny-step directions, done. There, you have Froyo on a Nook Color and can install anything you want off the Android store. Hell, $250 + 15 minutes beats the hell out of anything else out there in terms of value.

Jeez, damned Apple Nazis. I happen to like Apple, but you guys take this shit way too far.

 

[MagickMan]

Are people here really this stupid?

The Xoom runs on "cheap" hardware if Motorola didn't make a profit.

To sell a tablet for ~$300 its manufacturing costs are going to be ~$150.
That is cheap hardware.

To sell a tablet (like the Xoom) for ~$600 its manufauring costs are going to be ~$300

I really don't understand why this is so fucking difficult for people to understand.

The NC isn't being sold as a tablet. BN doesn't make any money off of it. They don't have to make money on each unit because they make downstream income from book sales.

You cannot compare e-readers to tablets. They are 2 completely separate markets and business models.

If BN sold the NC with a tablet OS at its current retail price they would go out of business.

We've countered all the crap you're spewing already. Repeating several times doesn't make it true.

 

[purbeast0]

OK EVERYONE lN THIS DAMN THREAD KEEPS THROWING OUT DIFFERENT NUMBERS ON HOW MUCH A NOOK COLOR COSTS TO MANUFACTURE BUT NOT 1 GOD DAMN PERSON HAS PROVIDED A LINK!

SOMEBODY WHO IS MAKING THESE CLAIMS ... FFS, PROVIDE A FUCKING LINK.

 

[Ns1]

It takes 15-20 minutes, not "hours upon hours". Read the page, DL the image, burn the card, insert the card into the NC, follow the easy step-ny-step directions, done. There, you have Froyo on a Nook Color and can install anything you want off the Android store. Hell, $250 + 15 minutes beats the hell out of anything else out there in terms of value.

Jeez, damned Apple Nazis. I happen to like Apple, but you guys take this shit way too far.

dude, I've taught my parents how to use winzip like 5 times. For the general population the concept of rooting a nook might as well be open heart surgery.

I think techies FAR OVERESTIMATE the technological competence of people.

 

[DivideBYZero]

dude, I've taught my parents how to use winzip like 5 times. For the general population the concept of rooting a nook might as well be open heart surgery.

I think techies FAR OVERESTIMATE the technological competence of people.

This x 1000.

Apple are winning based on the very fact that you DO NOT need to put Cyanogen 7, Froyo, 2.3, GingerBread, root, boot loader, radio update, rescue partition and all the other crap available onto their devices to get the features that people want. Geeks will cry that these users are 'too dumb', 'stupid', 'sheep', 'idiots' or all of the above for just using a device with the supplied tools, but this is what 99.5% of ALL the devices sold are used like.

People are happy to consume apps from the app store, music and movies from iTunes and books from iBooks. That doesn't make them idiots, it actually makes them pretty smart, as they're not spending hours upon hours per week tweaking, updating, patching or transcoding stuff to put onto their device. They just turn it on and enjoy.

For some, time is money, or time is something that can be spent on what they enjoy, and that may well not be cocking about with a phone or tablet for 40% of their weekend or evenings to make it 'just like an <insert target device name>'.