Nook Color Gets Honeycomb

[Deeper-blue] has released all the files necessary to get Android honeycomb working on your nook color. We had a chance to play with the nook color for a bit, but ours was only on Android version 2.1. It seems like they’ve come a long way with the capabilities of this simple e-reader since then.  While he’s built out the majority of the features, it is still lacking some fundamentals, like sound. As you can see in the video after the break, the scrolling is a tiny bit choppy but the applications themselves see to be fairly snappy. We can’t wait to see how this works after a little improvement.

 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2kJaVnXhPQ&w=470]

[via engadget]

18 thoughts on “Nook Color Gets Honeycomb

  1. i mean, i never wanted to buy a nook, until i saw this. Of course i would like to strap it with 18650’s and pop a Tegra 3 in that @%#$%, but i’ll settle for Tegra 2(50) and 1gb of RAM

  2. From what I read last night, this doesn’t have most of the features that the OS supports reworked for the device yet.

    From what I can remember, WiFi and Audio among other things don’t really function as expected, and framerate currently tops out at about 10FPS (and not even a smooth 10FPS, but an intermittent pulsing awkward 10FPS).

  3. eh, i looked on the website and apparently only the grayscale version has that nice free 3g deal..
    speaking of 18650’s.. i’m going to wire up 2 to my phone, one way or another, not in series making 8v but in parallel, doubling the current instead.. if that won’t fry it. ~4V, ?A, vs ~5V 1A from usb, i should probably be able to use wifi/gps all day on my ‘droid

  4. Nice concept, but Ill wait to buy something a little more powerful. Something $200ish that can trump my little Acer Netbook and has 5+ Hours of battery life while gaming and watching movies would be nice. ;D

  5. Is it possible to flash something else than Android on this device? I’m not interested in the 3G model therefore I’d have no reason to slow it down using Android. My choice would be Maemo or any other low footprint Linux distro that would boost both its performance and battery duration.

  6. @Viper! that’s what i was rambling about a Tegra3 and some 18650’s lol.
    @Chris- apparently your comment had been ‘pending confirmation’ for the few hours before i posted @11pm.
    @qwerty- what would you like on your pad, winslows slowbile? android is what you make it. put android 3 on a piece of crap and it will be a piece of crap. put android 1.x on a piece of crap and it will be a speedy piece of crap.

  7. but if you do find that low footprint mobile linux, i want it on my ‘HTC Magic’ (at least that’s what it thinks it is right now..) slow piece of crap can’t keep up with my wifispeed.

  8. I’d flash something else than Android because of Java. Anything based on it, including any version of Android, will be dramatically slower than native environments, particularly on hardware not that powerful as this one.
    Android makes sense when you also use the hardware as a cellphone or cellular modem, which is not my case as I already own an Android phone. In any other contexts it just slows down everything for no reason.

  9. I think Google chose Java for future compatimility. This way they theoretically can guarantee that every app written EVER will work on any future product. In reality this doesnt work even now as different platforms offer different capabilities (buttons, resolution).
    They wanted to be arch intependent (arm/mips/x86), but ignored simple things :(

  10. I most say it looks amazing.
    Could it be possible to use the USB port i server mode?

    I think the pads are a nice idea. However the power consumption and processing power needs to be improved before they become practical for real.

    I will get one when they come up to something like 1.5 GHz processors and 24 Hours of nonstop running.

  11. I own a Nook Color. I’ve rooted it, of course. I tried Honeycomb on it and the new interface was very different. I tried Nookie Froyo on it and it was definitely better than stock 2.1 rooted, but only marginally so.

    Then I removed my micro sdcard and had to revert to stock and start all over again. Since then, I’ve determined that 2.1 is not that bad at all, and it definitely kicked my HTC Magic’s butt. Now that I have a Nexus S in my Android collection, I only really use my Nook Color for Dolphin Browser HD on a larger screen, Robo Defense on a larger screen, and Logmein Ignition on a larger screen. My wife did just read a book on it though. Its MUCH more than just an ereader and its VERY capable, especially if you manage to get Nookie Froyo with the Market installed.

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