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So, I rooted a Nook Color today

mkruck

mkruck

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 30, 2008
229
16
San Antonio, TX
Installed Honeycomb on a Nook Color and learned a few things in the process.

It's not about the hardware - it's about the user experience.
This whole iPad vs. Xoom vs. Tab vs. next new Android tablet? Yeah, so, it's not about the hardware. Believe it or not, Honeycomb runs really, really well on a rooted Nook. Take your pick of hardware - Honeycomb is Honeycomb is Honeycomb, just like iOS is iOS is iOS.

I really, really like iOS.
I just want things to work. I've been in the I.T. industry since 1991, starting out as an HP-UX admin and working my way up the corporate food chain over the last 20 years. Even though I'm at the senior management level now (and have been for the last 10 years or so), I'm still deeply technical and am the "go-to" guy when the poop hits the technical fan. This is the very reason I don't want to put too much thought into browsing the web, reading and responding to email, watching a video or playing a game. I want to press the "On" button, click an icon and go. At this point in my life, I pretty much loathe all things computer.

What I don't want is endless tinkering, customizing and futzing around. While you don't have to tinker, customize and futz with Honeycomb, the ability to do that is right there, just waiting for you to play with it. It just sucks you in. 2:40 minutes later, I still haven't checked my work email on the Nook because I was busy futzing and tinkering, not to mention not having played with the kids before they went to bed, had a conversation with the wife or continued painting the bookcase out in the garage.

The upside? I now have a new tablet running Honeycomb for the grand total of $185.00. Used some Best Buy Reward Zone points to offset the $249 cost of the Color Nook. Rooting, installing and base config of Honeycomb only took a few hours, and I have to admit, it's fun to play with. Way fun. Graphics are great, web browsing is fantastic (tabbed browsing!!!) and the live wallpapers are fully cool.

It's not going to replace my iPad. It's going to my 5 and 8 year olds to play Angry Birds and PBA Bowling, so they keep their grubby little hands off my iPad.

Matt
 
It's an absolute bargain at that price and a really fun toy, not to mention a killer reader with a great screens. I came oh so close to buying so many times but I just couldn't justify the purchase to my wife, who wonders why I need yet another touch product in the household. :( (She doesn't understand that PocketPC and the Palm in the drawer don't count!!) She's still OK with an iPad purchase though :p

I wonder how often B&N will update the hardware. They probably aren't making much out of selling these and presumably these are sold cheap with the hope that they lead to more ebook sales. I'm curious to see how successful the Nook Color has been as the "razor handle."
 
I agree with the sentiment, I'm running nookie Froyo, as it's something a little more practical right now, but yes, the iPad is the whole package.

With the iPad 2 and apps like Garageband and iMovie, Apple are seriously making Honeycomb look like it's just a phone OS with a few alterations for a tablet. I don't know how long it will take for Android developers to make apps like Garageband or iMovie, and to be honest, from OSX/Windows experience, I doubt they ever will.
 
Yep another Nook Color rooted owner who also has Honeycomb.

My position on Android has not changed. It's ok but requires too much pratting about and the marketplace no matter if it's froyo, honeycomb etc. is poor compared to iOS & App Store.

Android always feels to me like an operating system on the brink of collapsing as you download yet another App from the marketplace, unsure whether it will be the app to break everything else or not. It's Tinker, Tinker, Tinker..... The geek in me doesn't mind that. The consumer in me makes me say I'm glad I didn't pay more than $200 for this.

The Nook Color fantastic reader. Ok tablet.
IPad fantastic tablet. Ok reader....
 
mkruck said:
What I don't want is endless tinkering, customizing and futzing around.

While you don't have to tinker, customize and futz with Honeycomb, the ability to do that is right there, just waiting for you to play with it. It just sucks you in.
Click to expand...

So, basically you need Apple's closed system to protect you from your own tinkering nature?

Sorry, it's too late for you, bud. You like rooting devices and installing hacked ROMs too much.

:)
 
kdarling said:
Sorry, it's too late for you, bud. You like rooting devices and installing hacked ROMs too much.
Click to expand...

There's limit to it though. At first I've tried pretty much every single ROM available for my Android phone and at some point I just began to get tired of tweaking with device for sake of tweaking.

If I really wanted to tweak, I'd prefer something like the Open Pandora but it's very true Nook Color's hardware, particularly its display, is simply unmatched at its price and that's an understatement.
 
kdarling said:
So, basically you need Apple's closed system to protect you from your own tinkering nature?

Sorry, it's too late for you, bud. You like rooting devices and installing hacked ROMs too much.

:)
Click to expand...

*laughing*

Yeah, it must be embedded in my DNA. I vividly remember taking apart my dad's brand new lawnmower about 35 years ago "to see how it worked".

He was not amused.
 
For the price i think no tablet beats the Nook Color. I love my android phone running Ginger bread and i love my Macbook(loathe my work dell). I plan on buying 2 ipads this friday. Each OS has its pros and cons.
 
Cool story, bro.

This is the iPad forum on MacRumors, not the "Tablet Enthusiasts" forum on Yahoo.

Is anyone else here sick and tired of reading the never-ending stream of Android topics around here? Don't the Android fans have their own forum on some other website to post things like this?

The mods should take action, as posts like these should be considered OT from the get go.

By all means, enjoy your Nook, the new pair of pants you bought, or the ham sandwich you ate for lunch, but please don't post about it here in the iPad forum on MacRumors. Thanks.
 
gatearray said:
Cool story, bro.

This is the iPad forum on MacRumors, not the "Tablet Enthusiasts" forum on Yahoo.

Is anyone else here sick and tired of reading the never-ending stream of Android topics around here? Don't the Android fans have their own forum on some other website to post things like this?

The mods should take action, as posts like these should be considered OT from the get go.

By all means, enjoy your Nook, the new pair of pants you bought, or the ham sandwich you ate for lunch, but please don't post about it here in the iPad forum on MacRumors. Thanks.
Click to expand...

While you are entitled to your own personal opinion and may express it... it is not the policy of MacRumors
 
gatearray said:
Cool story, bro.

This is the iPad forum on MacRumors, not the "Tablet Enthusiasts" forum on Yahoo.

Is anyone else here sick and tired of reading the never-ending stream of Android topics around here? Don't the Android fans have their own forum on some other website to post things like this?

The mods should take action, as posts like these should be considered OT from the get go.

By all means, enjoy your Nook, the new pair of pants you bought, or the ham sandwich you ate for lunch, but please don't post about it here in the iPad forum on MacRumors. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Because it's the macrumors ipad forums, that's why it's good to compare other devices. Get your head out of the sand and stop being an Apple droid, it is possible to have a civilized discussion while talking about non Apple products.

To the OP I've seriously thought about doing with with a nook. Might be a worthy diversion in the future.
 
gatearray said:
Cool story, bro.

This is the iPad forum on MacRumors, not the "Tablet Enthusiasts" forum on Yahoo.

Is anyone else here sick and tired of reading the never-ending stream of Android topics around here? Don't the Android fans have their own forum on some other website to post things like this?

The mods should take action, as posts like these should be considered OT from the get go.

By all means, enjoy your Nook, the new pair of pants you bought, or the ham sandwich you ate for lunch, but please don't post about it here in the iPad forum on MacRumors. Thanks.
Click to expand...
I am not an Android fan nor do I own any Android devices so I will not waste my time reading Android specific forums. It is still interesting to me though to learn about different products and how they compare to e.g. the iPad. To be fair to the OP this thread is slightly more relevant that a ham sandwich one would be! I had a ploughmans for lunch BTW.
 
Is there a website anywhere that gives more information on doing this? Also do you loose the Nook eReader ability? I'd love to do this on my wife's Nook.
 
wolfpackfan said:
Is there a website anywhere that gives more information on doing this? Also do you loose the Nook eReader ability? I'd love to do this on my wife's Nook.
Click to expand...

Like the other guy said over at XDA.................No you dont loose the eReader part of the nook. because actually the Nook is running on 2.1 out of the box.
 
The safest thing to do is to run froyo or honeycomb from the MicroSD card rather than flashing the Nook's internal memory.

The interesting thing about the Nook is that if the SD Card has android on it, it will boot from the SD Card rather than internal memory - without rooting.

You don't really want to root the internal memory if you want to use the Nook in Barnes and Noble stores and read books for an hour in store, as that functionality disappears after rooting...
 
^ yep that's what o did. Bought a class 10 16gb card and ran Honeycomb from it. Try and get a fast microsd card if you do go this route.
 
MacRumorUser said:
^ yep that's what o did. Bought a class 10 16gb card and ran Honeycomb from it. Try and get a fast microsd card if you do go this route.
Click to expand...

My track record with SD cards is awful! They always seem to die on me. Anyways eBay had a sale on them directly from B&N last week for $199 new. Purchased one and rooted it, so far I'm impressed with Honeycomb. Can't say the same for the Android Market though, it's annoying to navigate through.
 
What are the known bugs with honeycomb running on an nook? Interested in trying this for fun. Thanks
 
wolfpackfan said:
Is there a website anywhere that gives more information on doing this? Also do you loose the Nook eReader ability? I'd love to do this on my wife's Nook.
Click to expand...

If you do it on an microSD, it just boots into whatever is on it. Take it out and reboot back to normal stock reader.

http://nookdevs.com/Portal:NookColor

Although I actually followed the instructions for Honeycomb that were copied here at this post.

Imsuperjp said:
What are the known bugs with honeycomb running on an nook? Interested in trying this for fun. Thanks
Click to expand...

See above Nook Portal.

I made two uSDs. One with Honeycomb, one with Froyo. I figured the Froyo would run better. I think it's turning out the other way, that the Honeycomb hack is actually smoother. Besides, with only one button, the Froyo version relies on a virtual set of home/back/menu keys that pop up. Honeycomb doesn't need that since it has them always available onscreen.

B&N originally said they were going to come out with an update to Froyo, but later backed off and said they were going to only put out book related apps. More fools, they! The Nook Color is the cheapest, really nice 7" tablet on the market and could sell jillions if they put an official update on there.

Hardware wise, it's thinner and better looking IMO than the Samsung Tab that I use constantly. Just as nice a display. Not as fast or smooth as the Tab (I haven't overclocked the Nook yet from 800Mhz to 1.1GHz like a lot of people, though). And no GPS or 3G. But man, a lot nicer than the Archos tablets.

In any case, it's fun to play with. Not ready for prime time though, as others point out.
 
Last edited:
Also own a NC and love it - compliments the ipad nicely. Light, nice form factor, great e-reader. The screen is excellent and the build quality is definitely beyond it's $250 price. Honeycomb is fun but not ready for primetime use on this unit.
 
mkruck said:
What I don't want is endless tinkering, customizing and futzing around. While you don't have to tinker, customize and futz with Honeycomb, the ability to do that is right there, just waiting for you to play with it. It just sucks you in. 2:40 minutes later, I still haven't checked my work email on the Nook because I was busy futzing and tinkering...
Matt
Click to expand...

Finally I feel like there are people who understands my problem. I am definitely a gadget tinkerer, and am now moving back to doing some iOS and WP7 programming. I have been deep in the Android ecosytem this past year and wrote a few apps. But in the end, I feel that the open source end of the OS just keeps me sucked in day after day, trying to make something here or there better. So I hope moving back to the iOS platform will bring some discipline to me in this regards and help me to focus on writing good user-focused apps.

Lastly, as for the Nook color, it is definitely the best bargain for someone to dip their toes into Android. Give it a shot if you haven't done so, and you will find it rather exciting in some ways w/ all the different things you can do to make the Nook's UI what you want. Be careful though w/ apps, as there are a lot of malicious apps out there in Android world. Just thought I would mention that.
 
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