Would A Rooted Nook Color Be Good For A First Time Tab Owner?

[nyc cards]

I've never had a Tab before and want one with out having to shell out a lot of money. I'm just looking for a tab with a good screen, ability to read, surf the net, download movies and listen to music. I don't care about GPS, camera or bluetooth as I can do all that with my Epic.

I'm not very techy, so a buddy offered to root the Nook with C7 should I decide to go that route.

Would this be a good first tab for a Android dummy?

 

[mkramer5004]

Yes I get more impressed with the NC everyday. It is a great Tablet

 

[TerryB]

I started out to be an Android dummy and some might feel that I have regressed from there.
I have CM7 of my NC and it's quite a plaything.
I would suggest that you stick with the basic firmware until you see if you want to soup it up.
It is quite capable as B&N have it upgraded on Froyo now.
If you don't care for bells and whistles, the base might be the most pleasing for you.

Regards,
TerryB

 

[nyc cards]

Thanks for the info.

Would I be able to load movies on to the nook? If so, what program would I use for that?

 

[TerryB]

i haven't attempted that but you will find info easily with a search.
good luck,
Terryblauser

 

[mkramer5004]

Thanks for the info.

Would I be able to load movies on to the nook? If so, what program would I use for that?

I use DVD Catalyst to convert my movies to mp4 also Handbrake works great. Just do a search for it.

 

[Arterra]

As the cheapest tablet I can think of the NC serves its purpose perfectly when rooted/modded.

 

[Bigtuna00]

I've never had a Tab before and want one with out having to shell out a lot of money. I'm just looking for a tab with a good screen, ability to read, surf the net, download movies and listen to music. I don't care about GPS, camera or bluetooth as I can do all that with my Epic.

I'm not very techy, so a buddy offered to root the Nook with C7 should I decide to go that route.

Would this be a good first tab for a Android dummy?

No need to root. NC allows you to boot from an SD card. Community has created a bootloader that allows you to switch back and forth between Barnes & Noble ROM and the ROM on your SD card.

No easier/better/cheaper way to get started IMO.

Instructions here:

[ROM][CM7] [v1.3] Size-agnostic SD Card image and CM7 installer for SD Cards. - xda-developers

 

[intense98rt]

My wife wanted a tablet for reading books, access to her online classes, write papers and maybe play around a little. This was perfect. We picked up the NC yesterday. I rooted it then tried cm7 and hc. I didn't like the way either of those ran. So, I went back to rooted/stock. She has the native reader app to read her nicholas sparks books. She access to android so she can write her papers with either documents to go or quickoffice then use cloud print to print them. If she wants to switch back to her laptop she can use es file manager. BTW, the battery holds a long charge. I was using it for maybe 10hours (display lit almost that whole time), then plugged it to charge. Battery was at 30%.

 

[julesR]

One of my best ever electronics purchases. Rooted, CM7..bluetooth works. netflix works. Can create, edit, print office docs. Have a vm set up to run java apps. This thing rocks! period.

 

[mark_shillingburg]

I bought mine three weeks ago and guite using my laptop and desktop at home except for movie and photo editing. I use it to surf, facebook, coporate and personal email, shop online, read books, watch netflix and I have converted 30+ movies using handbrake and can watch them or listen to music.

Of course I can do all of this on my phone, but I can hardly read my phone screen.

It totally rocks.

 

[hooeybooey]

Don't get me wrong I love my NC, but I wouldn't suggest it to some one that is not techie. There are too many quirks and glitches. When the non-techies ask me for suggestions I also advised the one with the least amount of tech support phone calls to me. If you not comfortable with solving tech issues yourself go with something that does what you want out of the box. Just my 2 cents.

 

[koopakid08]

Don't get me wrong I love my NC, but I wouldn't suggest it to some one that is not techie. There are too many quirks and glitches. When the non-techies ask me for suggestions I also advised the one with the least amount of tech support phone calls to me. If you not comfortable with solving tech issues yourself go with something that does what you want out of the box. Just my 2 cents.

Most all of the quirks and glitches have been fixed in CM7. It is not hard at all to flash it to either your internal memory or even onto an SD card. (Make sure its a sandisk) For the price of one those "Out of the box tablets you could get two Nook Colors. I have also found that the Nook has better performance than any other android tablet I've used.

 

[moshe5368]

I have had 2 dedicated tablets in the last year and had many headaches with them. I purchased a nook primarily as an ereader to fill in as I found my 7" tablet sucked as a reader. Within 2 weeks of getting the nook, I found the forums. I saw what others had done with their nooks and decided to try it myself. Now. Must admit that I would fall into the catagory of a "techie" but android was a whole new ball game.
Long answer short, if you can read and follow instructions (and if you purchase an e-reader, we can call that a yes), then a nook is one of the most versitile devices I have ever seen. Rooting the nook took about 30 minutes. The process of getting a new rom (started with ultimate droid, then phiremod, then cm7) was a very plesent experience. These forums are filled with folks who will take the time to help you with any issues you may have. Read first, root later will solve most issues. The tech advice here is priceless, and you don't get this sort of help with customer support from the tab manufacturers. If you can't see spend an evening or two reading the forums, making new friends, and learning the android operating system, then purchase a regular tablet for about twice the price. On the other hand, if you are willing to do the above, you will find that the Nook Color can be one of the best devices on the market at a really unbeatable price. Just saying......

Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk

 

[FractalSphere]

I was willing to do the root myself, but I have found the Nook color to be an excellent first tablet. Have your buddy take some time and once you're running stable on CM, then you're good to go.

Enjoy!

 

[mikegentile]

I've never had a Tab before and want one with out having to shell out a lot of money. I'm just looking for a tab with a good screen, ability to read, surf the net, download movies and listen to music. I don't care about GPS, camera or bluetooth as I can do all that with my Epic.

I'm not very techy, so a buddy offered to root the Nook with C7 should I decide to go that route.

Would this be a good first tab for a Android dummy?

I am also interested in this. How does the rooted NC compare to say a Viewsonic G Tablet with a custom rom or a Samsung Galaxy 7"? I would like to get one but don't won't to spend the $600 for regular tablet and the price of the NC was what attracted me at first, then I found the other options as well. Is the rooted NC the best choice?

 

[moshe5368]

As for the samsung and viewsonic, they are respectable platforms. That being said, for the money you will spend on either of these tablets, you could buy 2 nooks. I have had a Huawei s7, an asus transformer, and 2 nook colors. What keeps bringing me back to the nook is the capabilities of the nook as compaired to other "real" tablets. Barnes & Noble put together one of the best devices on the market with the nook. The ability to boot from the sd card first is one of the best features. It is almost impossible to brick this device. The availability of custom roms and overclocking allows you to put together a device that will leave tablets twice the price in the dust. The screen features IPS ( in plane switching), a feature only found on the high end for most tablets. This allows a very wide range of viewing angles with crisp color. 8 gb of internal storage and the ability to use up to 32gb of additional storage via sd card places the nook ahead of a great number of other tablets. Cyanogen mod or cm7 with the nook tweeks app allows for the use of bluetooth and usb hosting for external flash drives of external hard drives as well as bt keyboards. (Writing this on a bluetooth keyboard on my nook) I get aproximately 14+ hours of battery life.
One minor issue is the lack of a front facing camera for video chat but an external webcam can be used through usb hosting. Some folks dislike the lack of gps but I have never found that to be an issue for me. The most recent minor issue I have found is problems with using google+ as they require a gps location in order to function properly.
Overall, there are lots of tablets on the market but none can compare with the features on the nook when price is considered.

In conclusion, if you want a tablet that "just works" with no input or effort from the user, the nook might not be the way to go BUT if you want an android tablet that can awe most of the regular tablet owners out there and are willing to read the forums, ask questions, and follow easy driections and, oh by the way, learn a great deal about android in the process, then run, don't walk, to the nearest B&N and pick up, what I believe to be, one of the best priced tablets on the market.
Sorry so long winded but I really like the nook

Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk

 

[fanatic205]

Yeah if you like modding things and stuff then the nook is awsome, but the new vizio tab at walmart is a really good deal for what you get. Acer also has a nice model. the prices on tablets is going to keep getting better, since the newer ones dont use cell phone parts.

I love my nook had a blast messing around with it but im seriously thinking about grabing the acer or vizio tablet soon

 

[koopakid08]

Yeah if you like modding things and stuff then the nook is awsome, but the new vizio tab at walmart is a really good deal for what you get. Acer also has a nice model. the prices on tablets is going to keep getting better, since the newer ones dont use cell phone parts.

I love my nook had a blast messing around with it but im seriously thinking about grabing the acer or vizio tablet soon

I wouldn't waste my money on a honeycomb tablet. Honeycomb was a half baked effort to try to get a tablet OS before the iPad 2 and it failed miserably. I would wait for a Ice Cream Sandwich table to even consider switching.

 

[erichalv]

This has been a very helpful and informative thread. I do love hacking things to make them do stuff that was never originally intended. This would be my first tablet and first android device as well. With all the positive reviews I've read about the Nook Color itself, along with all the praise I read from these forums on performance and "hackability", I think I have finally found my first tablet purchase.

Thanks.