
$249 Android tablet from Barnes & Noble - tomeast
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/26/live-from-barnes-and-nobles-very-special-event/
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docgnome
Am I the only one who remembers that the entire point of an e-reader is e-ink?
Seems like the reader market is merging into the tablet market.

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rbanffy
Actually the point of an e-reader is the e-book, not the e-ink. E-ink is just
a way to show text in a way that drains little battery and gives little eye
strain. It has, however, a couple very significant drawbacks. And it seems
more expensive to manufacture than a very good LCD.

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rodh257
I disagree, if I wanted to read e-books on an LCD why wouldn't I just use my
laptop or computer monitor?

The answer for me is because they aren't enjoyable to read on, too much eye
strain. E-ink solves this.

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rbanffy
A laptop has a clamshell design that does not support the same "operating
modes" a book does. A tablet, maybe.

You won't cover all use cases - static text and video/animation - with a
single design (PixelQi has a good compromise for the screen)

If my experience serves as a guide, the source of eye strain is the
brightness. If you lower the LCD brightness to be more or less the same as
what would be reflected from ambient conditions, you will see a marked
improvement.

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ajg1977
Only showing non-working mockups and a "look but don't touch" demo unit at the
press event for a device that's supposed to ship on Nov 19th makes me highly
suspicious.

For this thing to succeed it needs a killer web browser, and I suspect it
doesn't have one.

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koenigdavidmj
Even the B&W Nooks have a WebKit-based browser that works fairly well (renders
Facebook usably), although the UI is a bit clunky. JavaScript is a bit slow,
though, so I hope that the hardware is beefier.

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rbanffy
And it can't log in to HN (not, at least, through the built-in non-OpenID
authentication)

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teilo
I presume that it is merely a matter of time before this device is rooted and
turned into a basic Android tablet, complete with Flash, Marketplace access,
etc.

I suspect, however, that it is too underpowered to support Flash very well.

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StavrosK
The Archos 101 has comparable price, a 10" display, Android Market and looks
very very good indeed.

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alexyoung
E Ink Holdings (and competitors) have been demoing colour E Ink screens for a
while. This doesn't use that but I can't wait to see one that does.

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rodh257
It frustrates me when people release devices like this. It's not a good
e-reader because it hurts your eyes if you read on it for too long, and it's a
half-baked tablet. Whats the point? You can't compete with the iPad with
equipment like this, so why not stick to making good quality e-readers?

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greyman
I want to ask: do you guys in U.S. really do have that much WiFi coverage so
you don't need a 3G? Here in Europe I can't imagine to buy such a thing
without 3G... or do you do WiFi tethering through your phone or carry a WiFi
hotspot device with you?

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Raphael
Download the 1 or 2 books you need for the day and viola, no connection
needed.

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greyman
But I would also like to use it for web/email. If I want tablet only for
reading, then I can buy Kindle instead.

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twymer
I'm personally disappointed that it's more of a "Nook with color" than it is
an Android tablet.

Wish there was more information about "Nook Developer" as it's hard to tell
how much work an Android app needs to run on this.

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rbanffy
As far as I know, not much.

Rooting the Nook is straightforward (at least the previous version of the
original one) and all goes well from there.

AFAIK, B&N doesn't support developers and, last time I checked, appeared to
have no plans to do so.

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tomeast
Now to see if they leave allow a full Android environment or lock it down.

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barredo
No Android Market (will have it's own store in the future). No Adobe Flash
either.

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tomeast
Given that Ted Patrick (<http://ted.onflash.org/>) just left Adobe for Barnes
& Noble, there is a reasonable chance that it may get Flash at some point.

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jonhendry
Or else he's going to work on a Nook version of Adobe's software for
publishing glossy magazines on the iPad.

