Can Someone Explain The Nook Color To Me?
I must be missing something here because I recall the thing that made e-readers so ideal for reading was e-ink. It’s not just that, they’re super sharp and look like real paper and are easy on the eye, while be glare free and super easy on the battery. Then comes the Nook Color and at $250 it comes with a 7” color touchscreen display at 1024×600 (which makes the PPI 169 which is close to the iPhone 3 (165) whereas the iPhone 4 is 326 PPI and the HD2 (217), Diamond (286) and Nexus One (252) all have higher PPIs). It’s also running Android but it only has an 8 hour battery to it. So you get Android under the hood but they are limiting the apps you can install on it (Pandora, photo gallery, some light games and MP3 abilities at launch and more to come in the future but still limited). But the device is, first and foremost, an e-reader so you need to pin it against the newest Kindle. The Kindle is slightly smaller with a 6” display but it is e-ink and the new screen is 50% higher contrast than the last Kindle, can withstand direct sunlight and has a battery life that’s one month (that’s a lot more than 8 hours). It’s $140 for wifi and $190 with 3G. The battery life and screen differences are pretty substantial. I mean, if I’m getting 8 hours of battery life for $250 for Android then I may as well just get a generic Android tablet and then it’s unlocked to the Android market and can run any app. Without seeing the screen, I’ll presume it’s a highest contrast/viewing angle than a typical tablet but you lose the majority of Android.
Ok I’m done rambling but someone explain to me why they would pay $250 for an Android e-reader that’s not a first in class e-reader and is not a first in class Android tablet. I feel like it’s in dead man’s land falling between two niches but not excelling in either. You?
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i think when the ipad came out, they focused a wee bit too much on how to try to capture back some of the market that’ll jump ship and go to the ipad…so they forgot to try to outdo the kindle lol. thats the best i got…
Dan Gillmor has an interesting take on this — he seems to have a higher opinion of the Nook as a tablet than as an e-reader. He’s also expecting to see it jailbroken in the near future, at which time it may become a much more desirable device.
@DavidK – People are still buying iPhones, iPads, and Mac computers. This is clearly indicative of a market of idiots who are clearly willing to spend more money to buy shoddy products with little chance of being the best in class anything unless that class was failing at life in such a way that would give the KIN a self-esteem boost. People don’t always do what is smart. DVD audio failed against MP3s. Best Buy carries vinyl again. Shit doesn’t make sense because consumers are stupid.
@3waygeek: If you like it as a tablet then just get a $250 Android tablet and you’ll probably get similar specs and you won’t need to wait for it to be jailbroken. Like the Archos tablets.
Girlfriend has the nook without the color. Its pretty darn cool. If she wanted a color one I would have told her to get a tablet
This might be cool 100 bucks cheaper.