Root your Nook to get a way cool Android 2.3 tablet!

[Steve A.]

I can't say "No" to a good hack and the modding community has figured out how to replace the OS on a Barnes and Noble Nook Color eBook Reader with an open version of Android. The stock Nook Color runs a very restricted version of Android which gives you a few apps but no access to the Android Marketplace.

I had been thinking about getting the Coby 10" Android tablet for about $250 when it was released, but judging by their 7" tablet, it will be really crappy. A touchscreen- yes- but not the capacitive type used by Apple which responds well to all of your gestures. With the Coby there is no pinching and spreading to zoom out or in.

On the other hand the Nook Color is a very high quality piece of hardware, reportedly costing B&N about $200 per unit for something that sells for $250. They are obviously hoping to make the big profit on the back end, selling eBooks to the NC customers.

My game plan was to stop my print subscriptions of the local newspapers and read the electronic editions on my tablet. Note: the electronic editions are NOT like the newspaper website- it is an exact digital copy of the printed newspaper. Many papers are offering a package for $16-20 a year for the Sunday paper delivered plus the electronic edition every day.

Another feature I was looking forward to was to be able to watch videos of movies and TV shows anywhere in my house. I had first thought of doing that with WiFi but my computer is not fast enough to deliver streaming video- which was actually good news because it forced me to load the AVI files onto a micro SDHC card which I can watch anywhere, inside or outside my home, and not have to worry about having a good WiFi connection. The screen is 7" diagonal widescreen which is perfect for modern movies and TV shows. 1024 x 600 at 170ppi compared to 1024 x 768 at 132ppi for the iPad- a really nice picture in a fairly compact size (I can slip the Nook Color into the side pocket of my jeans- if I remove it from its case). The internal speakers are not very loud so you either want to use earphones or plug it into a stereo. I had been asking about playing my video files on the TV in my living room. My eyes are not that great and I can see the picture from my Nook Color from 2 feet away better than my TV at 5 or 6 feet away. (It has a really nice screen!)

As for the specs, this is a WiFi only tablet, the advantage being that there is no monthly contract for 3G/4G access (the disadvantage being that you are limited to WiFi networks). Like the original iPad there are no cameras so you can forget about video calls on Skype, etc. It has a micro USB port (smaller than the mini USB ports on much of my equipment).

Here is a video of a Nook Color rooted to an earlier version of the Cyanogen Mod:

YouTube - Rooted Nook Color CM7 CyanogenMod Release Candidate 4 (RC4!)

Here is a link to the page on Wikipedia which mentions that it is being modded:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nook_Color

Steve Ahola

[Steve A.]

The hardest thing about doing this was trying to decipher the jargon used by the developer's community. The instructions were very vague- they would tell you to do something, assuming that you already knew how to accomplish that task. "You flash the new ZIP file, dummy- don't you know anything?" So do you clear the cache first or just flash the ZIP file? Is there another step you do before unmounting the SD card?

The first few days after getting my Nook I could not find clear instructions on how to install Android- all of the links kept going around in circles. Finally I ran across a few videos on YouTube that demonstrated a few different ways to upgrade your Nook. There were quite a few different choices- some people just installed Android Marketplace on top of the B&N OS to allow them to run more apps while other people actually replaced the OS. And to replace the OS you had a choice of doing that to the internal memory (thus voiding your warranty) or by running the OS on an SD card (which is very slow). And there were several versions of Android being used: 2.2 (Froyo) 2.3 (Gingerbread) and 3.0 (Honeycomb).

It was Honeycomb that attracted me like a fly to, er, honey. Besides the very pricey Motorola Xoom, none of the Android tablets were running version 3.0, the first version designed for a tablet and not a phone. Well, Google has not yet released the full SDK for Honeycomb to the public yet, there is only what is called a "preview". I ran that OS first off an SD card just to get some idea what 3.0 would be like, but it was a trial OS, not something fully functional.

So once I learned how to backup the original B&N OS I started flashing in different versions that different people recommended finally settling on CyanogenMod or CM7 with Dalingrin overclocking (to increase the CPU speed from 800mHz to 1100mHz). They issued a new patch every night (called the nightlies) with new capabilities and new bugs, but they finally came out with a stable release on the April 11th. Woohoo! That one is working really well.

Steve

EDIT Dalingrin will be releasing a new kernel which will increase the CPU speed to 1300mHz. And someone else came out with an app which allows you resize the cache used with the SD card. Increasing the cache from the stock setting of 128kb to 2048kb increases the read speed by 80%. If we were to wait for the vendor (B&N) to implement improvements like these I think we would wait forever.

[Zipslack]

No need to root now

Barnes & Noble has released an update to the Nook Color that now unlocks it into a full Android 2.2 tablet - no need to "root" it...just install the update that's pushed from B&N. Wish I had an extra $250 sitting around.....

[Steve A.]

B&N has released a very limited version of Android 2.2...

Barnes & Noble has released an update to the Nook Color that now unlocks it into a full Android 2.2 tablet - no need to "root" it...just install the update that's pushed from B&N. Wish I had an extra $250 sitting around.....

... with no Marketplace and just a handful of Nook apps very few of which are free. I doubt that B&N will ever release an update that ISN'T limited since they are in the business of selling eBooks. You can read all about the update on the B&N site:

Software Updates - Barnes*&*Noble

What is alarming is that this update is not optional but will be installed automatically to all Nook Colors which are registered and have a Wi-Fi connection:

"The software update will be automatically downloaded to devices that are registered and connected to Wi-FiŽ, beginning the week of April 25 and over the coming weeks. There’s no need for you to take any action. The software will be downloaded to your device in a rolling update over the next week and automatically install when the device is idle. Once the update has been installed, you’ll see a small green ‘n’ on the left side status bar."

Not to fear- if your Nook Color has been rooted and you are running CM7/Android 2.3 Gingerbread there is no danger of receiving this cyber-attack. (Many people are running autonooter on top of the stock B&N OS to allow access to the Android Marketplace and they will probably get screwed up by the update.)

I have a hunch that B&N will eliminate the possibility of rooting in future versions of the Nook Color. The versions released so far look to the SDcard when booting up- if it finds an OS on the SDcard it will boot into that OS. I suspect that was a feature that they used when developing the device since it would allow them to quickly test new code. Only they forgot to remove that capability when they designed the NC. "I thought YOU were going to take that code out!"

Steve Ahola