This video = big injection of happy in my day.
We've been waiting for this day: our little reader would finally become a big boy tablet -- without having to resort to any sort of hackery. We knew it was coming and, as of now, owners of the Barnes & Noble Nook Color should be receiving notices that their devices are ready to drop those training wheels and run some proper apps. Flash web browsing, downloads, games, e-mail, it's all here. Click on through for our impressions and a video of the update in action.
Obviously the biggest addition here are the apps themselves, and sadly we're not talking full Market access -- nor access to any of the standard Google applications like Gmail or Maps. Barnes & Noble has its own set of libraries that software developers must include and use, providing the unified experience the company wants to bring to its little ecosphere, making the look and feel of apps jive with the rest of the system. As to which apps will be available, we saw a number of games, cooking helpers like Epicurious, and, yes, Angry Birds -- though we weren't able to get the latter to install successfully. To that end, frequently used apps slot right in next to your most recently read books and magazines, and browsing for them in the store is just like hunting for printed titles, even carrying over the same categories -- or genres, as it were. The stock browser now includes Flash support and things perform reasonably well, but there was some noticeable lag at times when playing videos or scrolling about on pages with animations. Performance is generally good, but there are definitely some responsiveness issues and it's safe to say your Nook won't exactly be making any owners of dual-core Honeycomb tablets jealous when it comes to performance.
Ultimately this latest update turns the $250 Nook Color into a fine entry-level tablet with a comfortable size, nice screen and a rather accessible price. That said, this is still a far cry from the pure Android tablet experience that many enthusiasts want. In other words: this isn't likely to stop those Nook hacks that we've come to know and love over the years.
via engadget.com
Android devices: BEST INVESTMENT EVER.