This is the Nook Color eBook Reader by Barnes & Noble.  It is their version of the Kindle sold by Amazon.  What makes this device attractive to me is the Nook Color runs the Android operating system.  The OS that comes with the Nook can be replaced by a version than can turn the Nook into a full-blown internet tablet.  After rooting the device and loading an after-market software build such as Cyanogenmod 7 the Nook will take on a new life being able to perform and run the same software available for Android phones.The Nook has built-in WiFi so you can use it at home.  When away from home you can tether the Nook to your smartphone over WiFi and use your cellular internet provider.The Nook is Adobe Flash enabled so you can watch videos using the web browser.Here's the Cyanogenmod page for the Nook Color:  http://www.cyanogenmod.com/devices/nook-colorWhile the Nook Color is said to not have Bluetooth the components are in there (including an FM radio) and the user community is gradually writing the software to activate the hidden goodies.I'll be ordering mine in June.  Sure it is not an iPad but it is less than half the price.  After loading Cyanogenmod 7 not only can you continue to use the B&N Book Reader but you can also use the Amazon Kindle Book Reader app for Android!

June 5

So I purchased the Nook Color this week.  In a matter of two hours I had wiped out the Nook firmware in the tablet's flash memory and installed Android 3.0 (Honeycomb).  This is the version that runs on the Morotola Xoom which is more than twice the price of th Nook.Here's a view of the Nook's new main screen.  I'm running Launcher Pro as the Home Screen Launcher with Beautiful Widgets for the clock ad weather widgets.  This screen looks almost the same as the main screen on my Droid phone. 

Here's a shot of the Nook running the Android Market.  After rooting the Nook and installing Android 3.0 I have access to the market to download anytning I want.  Not everything runs or runs properly but so far I am having a 90% success rate.  I have not only installed the Nook eBook Reader application but I have also installed the Kindle eBook Reader Application!

This is a screen shot of VNC server running on the Nook and remote displaying the Nook screen to my home computer.  I can't think of much I would use this for other than to impress my friends.  

I had to take this photo in the dark to avoid screen reflection.  This is the Wifi Analyzer application showing the wireless access point signals available in the house.The next accomplishment was tethering the Nook to the Droid over Wifi.  On my next long car trip I was disappointed to see that I could not even see the Droid hotspot on the Nook even though I could see it on the laptop.  It turns out the stock configuration on the Nook runs Wifi in Infrastructure Mode only and the Droid was creating the hot spot signal in Ad Hoc Mode. A simple internet search revealed some modified files I needed to copy over to the Nook to allow both Ad Hoc and Infrastructure Modes.  Fortunately I was familiar with the Android SDK and using ADB over the USB cable to make this change.  The script was a bash script but it was a simple edit to change the script to a batch file that ran under Windows.   After the change the Nook ran seamlessly in Ad Hod or Infrastructure Modes.Then another app called TetherGPS allowed me to tether the Droid GPS signal over the Wifi Tether to the Nook.  I was able to run Google Navigation on the Nook using the data from the Droid cellphone's GPS.I have to admit this all has been quite gratifying.The Nook does not have a camera nor a microphone.  Other than that for the $250 price it is an incredible piece of engineering.  The Motorola Xoom is priced at $550 without 3g.There are procedures for loading bootable images on SD cards so you don't have to worry about the internal flash memory.  You can boot the standard Nook just by removing the SD card.  The nice part of the design is that if you corrupt the OS (which I did once) and the Nook no longer boots, all you have to do is insert a specially prepared SD card before power up and the Nook will boot from the card if it finds a bootable image there.  It is almost impossible to brick the Nook.  There will always be a way to breathe life back into it. 

I can't imagine Barnes and Noble would be too happy about me running the Kindle Reader on the Nook.  My wife is still shaking her head that I voided the warranty within a few minutes of opening the box.  But hey!  I still have the Nook Reader.

June 9, 2011
When I first rooted the Nook and replaced the Barnes & Noble stock firmware I loaded Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) which is the software used on the Motorola Xoom tablet.  The software was very nice but there were some shortcomings when used on the Nook.  The Nook is not as fast as the Xoom and the graphics processor is also not as good, so the Nook is slightly slower than expected on 3.0.  Still the experience is very impressive.

The primary reason I decided to switch from Android 3.0 to CyanogenMod 7 (nightly) (based on Anddroid 2.3) is bluetooth support!The Nook Color has some internal hardware that is not supported by the originak Barnes & Noble firmware.  These are bluetooth, FM Radio receive and FM Radio transmit.  The developers are working on these. I found the Nook wired headphone audio to be disappointing.  It was very lacking in bass.  An audio equalizer app helped improve this but the app consumed CPU resources for the Digital Signal Processor to process the audio.  With bluetooth I can run my Motorola BT headset on the Nook with great audio in the headset.  Right now the range is severely limited but the developers are chasing that issue.CyanogenMod 7 has a built in audio DSP and it works quite well.  With the proper tweaks in the DSP settings I was able to compensate for the poor earphone audio.  It really sounds fantastic now and I use the Nook as my main device for music and Internet Radio listening.With bluetooth working I can use things like a bluetooth keyboard and bluetooth audio headsets.  I was hoping to use the Noook with VoIP applications over Wifi using a bluetooth headset but it seems there is no hard-wired audio-out path in the device.  This means that even with bluetooth working there is no way to get the bluetooth mic audio on to the network. 

This is the main CM7 Home Screen which shows my most used programs such as my music player and internet radio players as well as email, calendar, browser, Facebook, IM, Kindle and Nook readers. My Quadrant benchmark score with the overclocked kernel at 1.2 GHz is 2462!  Very impressive if you place any faith in the benchmark. Some people downplay CyanogenMod on the Nook as merely a Smartphone OS put on a tablet.  The folks at CM are working with the AOSP (Android Open Source Program) source code for 2.3 and they are really making the Nook dance.  The stability is excellent. On the Android 3.0 side the source code has not been released by Google so the community can only work with hacks and patches to the binaries.  This introduces inherent instabilities.Another nice thing about CyanogenMod 7 is that Rom Manager and Titanium Backup work flawlessly.  For Clockwork Mod Recovery on Android 3.0 I could only get it to work using a bootable SD card.  I could not get it installed on the internal memory (eMMC) without the Nook always booting into Clockwork Mod Recovery.  Titanium Backup would not restore any apps under 3.0.  With Cyanogen Mod 7 the Titanium Backups work flawlessly and Clockwork Mod Recovery is properly installed on the internal eMMC.  I can boot the Nook from a cold start directly into Clockwork Mod Recovery or I can reboot to CMR from a running system.  This makes system maintenance a breeze as well as making a tempting environment to keep swapping out different ROMs or new upgrades to try. 

 

The second Home Screen has a bookmark widget, a calendar widget and a system widget which displays battery charge, temperature, CPU load, CPU speed and storage.  You can configure any home screen to your personal liking.    

This is the browser view of Facebook.  I have Firefox running on the Nook and it displays most of the web pages I visit without issue.  There are some issues with certain sites related to Java or Flash but most work just fine 

 

This is a view of the Amazon Kindle reader for Android running on the Nook Color!  It is displaying a page from Howie Karr's book "Hit Man."  I prefer setting the display to white characters on black background with a larger font because of my poor vision.  The black background is easier on my eyes.  You can change the display preferences according to your own taste. The Kindle Reader has nice features such as bookmarks so you can easily return to where you left off. I have not purchased any eBooks yet from Barnes and Noble.  After all, I did not buy the Nook to read books anyway.

One of the things that takes getting used to with eBooks is not having the physical book!  I am used to leaving my books in a rack by the kitchen table and frequently read duing lunch or snacks.  Now I have to go find the Nook before I raid the refrigerator.  

 

 

This is an image of Firefox displaying my web site.  (This site you are on now.)  It looks better in landscape mode because the font is bigger and it's easier to read.  You can use the regular finger pinch or stretch to zoom in and out if you want. The most desirable feature I am waiting for is getting the Bluetooth fixed.  Barnes and Noble did not sell the Nook Color with the expectation that it had Bluetooth inside.  The developer community discovered the hardware is in there.  They got the Bluetooth working but the range is only mere inches.  That's because the radio chip inside that runs WIFI and Bluetooth shares the same antenna under software switching control.  The developers have not yet worked out the code to properly switch the radio chip between WIFI and Bluetooth.  Once they do the Bluetooth functionality will be wonderful to have.  We are all waiting patiently. The Nook is also supposed to have an FM radio receiver AND transmitter chip inside but it does not have a physical antenna.  You might think it would be simple to just go in there and solder a piece of wire to the pin on the chip but the connections to most of the chips are underneath the body of the chip between the chip and the PCB.

More to come when the Bluetooth is working!