My Nook Tablet review posted to Amazon and Best Buy product pages

[roustabout]

Bob:  for color adjustment, check out Screen Adjuster in the market - it's not a calibrator, and I've never tried to calibrate the Transformer (I have a Spyder puck, but tablets never struck me as worth the investment of time to try getting that serious about,) but it lest you adjust the relative RGB , brightness and contrast levels of your device.

Hey, wonder what it'd do on the glowworm about dialing up contrast?  : )

[Jadjuka]

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Gtriever wrote:

Laugh away, bud, because the thing IS just a glorified e-reader. It's not just the apps that qualify something as a tablet, in this case it's the lack of access to things that some folks actually need to be productive.

Database app (and not that silly mass of "checklists") :  not there

IT apps and calculators : not there

Wireless sync (that actually works) without going through the cloud: not there

File manager: not there

File and System Backup: not there

I could go on, but what's the use. My point is, if you're going to market the thing as a tablet, then allow it to be a tablet. B&N could have hit a home run by marketing a tablet with B&N's advanced ereader capabilities; instead it's just the Nook Color 2.

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If you want to do all those things that badly than just get a laptop. Tablets are pretty useless when you want to compare it to a portible device that "can do it all" such as a laptop or if you want to go simpler... a smart phone. Only difference is at least a phone can make phone calls which is more than what a tablet can do and the difference between a laptop or notebook is that it can actually get work done except make phone calls. 

But with all the apps/programs available today and with so many people texting instead of calling; you could just email the messege or text someone using a program or app. 

If you want a tablet than by all means. But don't complain because it can't do it all plus make a sandwich. After all a tablet isn't a computer so stop asking for something to do it all plus make a sandwich because it frankly can't. 

[Brainylainy]

I agree that bluetooth would be nice on the NT. To play music and movies on the NT I use my Jawbone Jambox speaker, which I bought for my iPhone with bluetooth. But, it also has a cable which you can attach to the NT's microphone input. It works fine. The speaker is small enough to hold in the palm of your hand

[Brainylainy]

You have a valid point, but I still don't know what I'm missing because it's locked.. I love my Tablet and since I have an iPhone, I have plenty of apps--& I have some great apps on my NT too. My only problem with the NT is that it doesn't have a Kindle app but I can get the n2a card (as I did with my Color) to get thar app and access to the full Andrid market. Before the lockdown, was the Kindle app available? ,

[PJLLB]

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Brainylainy wrote:
...Before the lockdown, was the Kindle app available? ,

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It was available via sideloading.

[Cycosfireball]

Doesn't really matter, the age of THIS thread, I could have picked a number of threads with this same subject. This just happed to be the one I responded to .

I do agree with Texas, though, that if you bought the tablet before they locked it, would be a little frustrating. IF you bought it after and then complain.... *shrugs* . I have had 2 issues with my Nook tablet so far, ( 3 days into purchase, now ) and I think those are far more disturbing, then not being able to have a kindle app stock.... etc.

I think if people want to use it for work, playing games and having a billion apps, then this is not the device to buy.  Simple.

[TnTexas]

Cycosfireball: I think if people want to use it for work, playing games and having a billion apps, then this is not the device to buy.  Simple.

I agree. If that's what someone's wanting one for, B&N's tablet is not the way to go. The Fire or a general-purpose tablet like the Tab will fit their needs much better straight out of the box. Now the Tablet can be tinkered with (via rooting or an n2s-type card) and made to do much of what they want, but straight out of the box? Nah. It's just going to disappoint and be a source of frustration. 

[Sun_Cat]

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Jadjuka wrote:

If you want to do all those things that badly than just get a laptop. Tablets are pretty useless when you want to compare it to a portible device that "can do it all" such as a laptop or if you want to go simpler... a smart phone. Only difference is at least a phone can make phone calls which is more than what a tablet can do and the difference between a laptop or notebook is that it can actually get work done except make phone calls. 

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Your main point is well taken, but I do want to make a couple of nit-picking corrections to what you said here, just in case someone is taking it as literal truth.

1. Some tablets are also cell phones.
2. Any Android tablet that has audio in/out and Market access can function as a VOIP phone -- using Skype, for example, or the combination of Google Voice and GrooVe IP.
3. Similarly, laptops, notebooks, and desktops make perfectly good VOIP phones. (But you wouldn't want to carry one in your pocket waiting for it to ring. )

[bobstro]

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Jadjuka wrote:

If you want to do all those things that badly than just get a laptop. Tablets are pretty useless when you want to compare it to a portible device that "can do it all" such as a laptop or if you want to go simpler... a smart phone.

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I would be very interested in hearing what you think the fundamental differences are between, say, a smartphone running Andriod and a tablet running Android when it comes to these sorts of things. Tablets can easily do those things that Gtriever listed. Witness the Amazon Kindle and the selection of apps they have available to choose from.

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Only difference is at least a phone can make phone calls which is more than what a tablet can do and the difference between a laptop or notebook is that it can actually get work done except make phone calls. 

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What does making phone calls have to do with those functions? Why is a 4 inch phone tablet better than a 7 inch tablet?

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But with all the apps/programs available today and with so many people texting instead of calling; you could just email the messege or text someone using a program or app.

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If only you could run an app that would let you

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If you want a tablet than by all means. But don't complain because it can't do it all plus make a sandwich. After all a tablet isn't a computer so stop asking for something to do it all plus make a sandwich because it frankly can't. 

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The things most of us are looking for are things that run just fine on an Android tablet. They are things B&N vaguely alludes to in their marketing pages. They are things the NC and NT can run just fine. The problem is that B&N fails to populate the App Store with a sufficient spread of apps to fill our needs, or prevents even willing publishers from supporting the apps they do stock. We're not talking about making sandwiches here. We're talking about apps that run fine on the B&N devices. The "problem" is not technical. It is B&N-imposed.

The popularity of the AFN and N2A cards attests to the demand for accessing more.

[bobstro]

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TnTexas wrote:

Cycosfireball: I think if people want to use it for work, playing games and having a billion apps, then this is not the device to buy.  Simple.

I agree. If that's what someone's wanting one for, B&N's tablet is not the way to go. The Fire or a general-purpose tablet like the Tab will fit their needs much better straight out of the box. Now the Tablet can be tinkered with (via rooting or an n2s-type card) and made to do much of what they want, but straight out of the box? Nah. It's just going to disappoint and be a source of frustration. 

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I think it's important that purchasers let B&N know they're not satisfied with the unfulfilled promise of the app store. While it has improved, there is still a pretty poor selection of apps.

I'm happy to red flag the B&N devices for new purchasers, but that doesn't do much for those of us who purchased on the original promises. There is a meager of selection available in the app store, and B&N has sealed up the means by which it was possible to work around that. To make it worse, they're making it difficult for developers who do want to play ball.

The pity is that these can be excellent devices in the low-end tablet category, if only B&N would lighten up. If B&N is going to sell these as more than just e-readers -- and it's pretty clear they are -- it would be nice if they had a range of applications to actually do more with that was at least near the competition's. B&N sure seems to want the NOOKs to compete against the Kindles.

[roustabout]

" B&N has sealed up the means by which it was possible to work around that."

BN didn't 'seal up the means' in the sense that the NT became a magical and unrootable device because the singular means by which software from other vendors could be loaded was taken away.  The NT became entirely comparable to the NC in terms of ease of rooting.  For its first month, it was much easier to load other software on than the NC, but many folks thought it obvious that that would change since the first and much-ballyhooed alternate source was Amazon.  BN has been taking actions on all fronts against Amazon;  there was no way they were going to let Amazon sell software using BN hardware without a fight. 

BN has since acceded to customer demands and made it possible to resize the onboard partitions and while there are still some types of apps that they really are obliged to make available and choose not to - here I'm thinking of backup apps - but credit where credit is due:  they now have some of hte nice science apps available which really should be available on a device being pitched as, in part, a learning device. 

The development process, and the level of manual interaction with BN required to participate in it, remains much, much worse than on most platforms. 

If the LCD Nook models in the next generation are running windows 8, as seems very likely to me, I suspect the app development process will open up quite a bit as well. Just the investment from Microsoft may do a world of good in terms of helping separate the Nook unit from the bookstore/publishing dominated arm of the franchise. 

My thinking is that the people who cooked up the current app development model are trying to recapitulate what publishing does in terms of authors.  I don't think that's a great model for books, and I think it's a really terrible model for software. 

[SimpleUser]

Hey, I guess I would call myself a simple user. My husband was sweet enough to buy the Nook Color tablet for my birthday. He saw the need because I am taking some classes and need a portable reader. I have a 17.5 inch laptop which I hate lugging around. He has an IPAD. One other thing I wanted the Nook for was because on one of our flights, we noticed that his IPAD had a much better battery life than my laptop. We both purchased movies for our flight from ITUNES. I added movies on my laptop he added movies on his IPAD. Boy, I was so upset when my laptop ran out of battery life right before the end of my movie. My husbands IPAD kept going. When he noticed this, he decided to buy the NOOK for me. Guess what? I can't buy movies from ITUNES. As I stated, I am a simple user, so I am going a chore in trying to find out how I can add movies to my NOOK.... Here I go... I agree with floridaphil,,,, COME ON BN get on board before you lose this very competitive market. As a NOOK owner I am cheering for you. I don't want to have to give mine up too.

[flyingtoastr Scribe]

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SimpleUser wrote:

Hey, I guess I would call myself a simple user. My husband was sweet enough to buy the Nook Color tablet for my birthday. He saw the need because I am taking some classes and need a portable reader. I have a 17.5 inch laptop which I hate lugging around. He has an IPAD. One other thing I wanted the Nook for was because on one of our flights, we noticed that his IPAD had a much better battery life than my laptop. We both purchased movies for our flight from ITUNES. I added movies on my laptop he added movies on his IPAD. Boy, I was so upset when my laptop ran out of battery life right before the end of my movie. My husbands IPAD kept going. When he noticed this, he decided to buy the NOOK for me. Guess what? I can't buy movies from ITUNES. As I stated, I am a simple user, so I am going a chore in trying to find out how I can add movies to my NOOK.... Here I go... I agree with floridaphil,,,, COME ON BN get on board before you lose this very competitive market. As a NOOK owner I am cheering for you. I don't want to have to give mine up too.

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This has way more to do with Apple using crazy proprietary DRM for their files and far less to do with BN (though hopefully the partnership with M$ means we'll get a movie/music store sooner rather than later).