Barnes Noble has touted its Nook Color as "the reader's tablet" given the product's inception. But after the firm voiced the launch of an Android OS refurbish and lengthened features on the device this week, we're not sure what to call it anymore.
E-reader? Tablet? E-tablet?
Version 1.2 of the Nook Color's firmware launched Monday morning, bringing Android OS 2.2 (Froyo) to existing users of the e-reader tablet. The program includes expansions to web surfing on the device, inclusive Adobe Flash and Air support, together with the skill to take e-mail.
The firm moreover voiced the launch of the Nook App store. Customers are right away able to download and use apps on their Nook Color devices, whilst still being able to buy books from the Barnes Noble getting more information catalog.
The Nook Color app marketplace will launch with a comparatively meagre 125-plus apps - reduction than the amount launched with RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, that debuted with more than 3,000 apps, even though more than Motorola's 50-ish Honeycomb inscription apps existing is to Xoom on its launch. Barnes Noble says its app marketplace will grow, as more than 5,000 developers have already purebred is to Nook Color developer program, and hundreds of already-submitted apps are in line for vetting by BN before being expelled for purchase.
One large drawback: Users of the Froyo-based Nook Color won't be able to download Android apps directly from the Android Market. They'll have to wait for for developers to dock versions of apps over to the Nook Color. That's a colossal ecosystem - roughly 200,000 apps - that's entirely out of attain for Nook users.
But BN says it's easy to dock Android apps to the Nook Color. "Our SDK [software growth kit] is an prolongation of the typical Android SDK," mentioned Claudia Romanini, executive of developer family is to Nook Color. "Developers do not have to do ample other than eliminate features not upheld by our hardware (GPS, camera, telephony), and then rescale the app in conditions of rise sizes and graphics, to ensure it functions on our display."
The Nook Color's passing from one to another in to an e-reader-tablet hybrid might be a chic pierce for Barnes Noble. Gartner investigate forecasts sales of 11 million e-readers in 2011, but it's a ample not as big marketplace than tablets, where IDC predicts 44.6 million units to liner in 2011. (IDC defines media tablets as iPads or Android tablets that do not rest to one side on E Ink displays.)
The Nook Color moreover edges itself in to a not as big market, both figuratively and literally. It's a 7-inch device, on par with that of the Samsung Milky Way Tab (which moreover runs Android 2.2 Froyo) and RIM's PlayBook, and significantly not as big than the 10.1-inch Xoom (Android's flagship inscription product) and the 9.7-inch iPad 2. The not as big form reason could allure to audiences that do not wish the unwieldiness that comes with additional shade actual estate.
Barnes and Noble's inscription falls partial of other tablets in other respects. The Nook Color is running on an 800-MHz processor with 512 MB of RAM, defective to the slew of dual-core, 1-GHz-plus processors featured in many 2011 inscription debuts. Also, the Nook Color is currently existing in a Wi-Fi-only version, but not 3G or 4G. And it's not running the many new versions of Android: 2.3 "Gingerbread" or the tablet-optimized 3.0 "Honeycomb."
The price, however, is hard to beat. At a little $250, the Nook Color's bottom line bests the priciest of the new inscription debuts, many of that beginning at ceiling of $500.
"The Nook Color with its new Froyo ascent is not an iPad, not even close," Gartner researcher Allen Weiner wrote in a blog post. "But those who are seeking for a great cross-media getting more information device with a few good new multimedia bells and whistles, it waste a go-to device."
To setup the new firmware, you can download it from Barnes Noble and then sideload it onto the device. Or you can wait for for an over-the-air refurbish that will be pushed to all Nook Color customers next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment