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The new NOOKcolor promises to be a little more than just your standard e-reader, and we aren’t talking simply about the full-color LCD display. It turns out the new Nook has a bit more in common with high-end cellphones and tablets than you might expect, as a TI OMAP3621 processor will give this thing the juice it needs to do a lot more than simply display e-books. This processor comes from the same family of chips featured in the Motorola Droid X and Droid 2, and is based around an ARM Cortex-A8 CPU and features PowerVR 3D graphics acceleration.
Compare that with a pretty pedestrian Samsung S3C6410 chip in the boring black and white Nook, and it’s easy to see the A-game was brought for the NOOKcolor. The device seems pretty tempting for those who want a low-cost tablet alternative that maintains the form-factor but balances its everyday use between simple tasks and reading.
[via Android and Me]
It’s a ridiculous device. It’s not a full tablet and the battery life(due to the LCD screen) is far less than a typical e-ink based device. So you lose tons of battery life and gain a couple of locked-down, sub-par tablet-like features; as Tech Crunch wrote, B&N simply got greedy.
When the next Kindle launches(likely in just under a year) then we’ll have a colour e-reader worth caring about. This is just poor in every respect.
Who cares about this as an ereader? If we can get the full Android experience on this, I would take a long look.
Right Jonathan, for $249, this sounds like it might be a pretty decent tablet.
Ugh…either make it cheaper and worse (an ereader) or a little better and make it a tablet that does e-reading well
Just wait for it to get rooted and put a custom ROM on it.
I was very close to getting my girlfriend a Nook for her birthday but I’m glad I waited. She actually reads a ton and an eReader would be great, especially since the nook lets you borrow books and read lots of free formats like pdf. The problem is that the Nook and Kindle were OK at reading but not much else. This at least improves the interface and browser so that it can work as sort of an eReader-plus without having to spend $600-700 for a full tablet. I may have to check this thing out as a sort of hybrid device with a price point in between a Galaxy Tab/iPad and a Kindle/Nook.
I had a Kindle 2 which I returned fairly quickly. I currently have a Nook, which I rarely use because sitting under a light that has to be bright enough to read by for any length of time just gives me a roaring headache. In the last two and half years I’ve probably ready over 400 books on just my iPod touch and an Android cell phone. I’m really looking forward to thoroughly checking out this device. I can’t wait!
This device has definitely piqued my curiosity. Price point is right in my range, and no contracts (YAY!). I have no problem reading books on an LCD (have ready tons of books on my old Blackberry and my current EVO). Imagine installing the Amazon Kindle software on this; access to both book stores. Hope they don’t cripple it too much…
The Nook Color will not run apps straight out of the Android Market, but that does not mean it cannot run them. In fact, they have done a lot of tests on apps from standard Android smartphones and they pretty much run on Nook Color, which has Android 2.1 under the hood. (The Nook native interface and apps are just standard Android application layers.) Barnes & Noble special Nook SDK runs on top of the standard Android one and gives developers access to exclusive extensions and APIs for the Nook and its interface. So porting Android apps is not difficult. B&N says it is more like optimising them for Nook than porting them.
Nook Color screen is supposed to be better (less reflective) for reading than iPad.
I have a nook, and love it. I looked at this, and thought – meh. I don’t want an lcd screen, its not good for reading. Comments about the B&W version being worse – if you’ve never used an e-ink screen, I could see how you wouldn’t know that its far superior in terms of legibility, viewing in direct sunlight, and battery usage. Give me a color e-ink screen, and I’d upgrade. This is coming from a guy with a droid, nook, and a hybrid touchscreen laptop.
What I like about this is that it is Android based. Even if it is a bit locked at first, it won’t be long for the hackers to crack it open. When that happens, I suspect it will become a pretty affordable alternative to the IPad. The IPad may have 300k apps on its marketplace but geez who is going to scan through all of that. Give me a good browser, a note taker, an e-reader, some office apps and a decent movie/music player, and that will take care of 98% of my mobile needs. I also like that it has a way of adding memory and a mini-usb. Now the only question is how well does it run and can you pop a webcam on it? If it runs smoothly without any heavy hiccups then I will buy.
Khalid – I don’t think you had the device in your Hand yet. I had and I ordered it afterward immediately. I can insure you, it’s a tablet, you surf in the Net, it fast, the screen is clear and the display is close to HD. You have up to 32 GB external memory (or more) The only thing I missed so far is flash, but I can imagine it will come with a future software upgrade of Android. So what is it what you miss?