Technology for Mortals

Just make sure you follow these instructions carefully.

Why is this cool?

• Everything is way faster!  Well to be specific, it’s mainly the soft keyboard that’s way faster.  The old keyboard was somewhat laggy and annoying.
• Full Android market
• Should be easy to restore factory restore on 8 failed boot attempts
• Already used apps like Wyse Remote Desktop and Angry Birds
• Replaced launcher with free edition of LauncherPro.  So much nicer than the default launcher.
• The iPhone showed that people want native applications (apps) instead of running everything through a web browser

How is Nook Color different from Samsung Galaxy Tablet?

• Nook Color has superior 8-bit IPS LCD panel with better color and viewing angles.  Galaxy is a 6-bit TN LCD panel.
• Galaxy Tablet has built-in 3G, Wi-Fi, and BlueTooth.  No 3G on the Nook Color and the BlueTooth hardware isn’t currently supported yet.  3G is not a problem for people with one of those portable MiFi hotspots which support multiple devices.
• Nook Color has no cameras.  Galaxy has both front and rear video camera.
• Galaxy is slightly lighter.
• Galaxy is more than twice the price of the Nook Color.

How is Nook Color different from iPad?

• With a microSDHC slot, you don’t get robbed on flash memory
• Unless your name is Yao Ming, you’re not going to palm an iPad.  The 7″ form factor fits in a large pocket and it’s much easier to operate standing up or hand held.
• Less than half the price.
• Nook Color runs Google Android, iPad runs Apple iOS.

Update – The pigs have taken the eggs, but the kids got my Nook Color and won’t give it back.

When I get it back, will need to test the new Kindle App (Barnes & Nobles have to be rolling in their graves).  Already tested the Google Books app and it seems to work fine and it comes with a huge free library.

Issues so far -

• I had to create a new Google account even though my YouTube account was already linked to my Gmail account.
• YouTube App was working great initially but refuses to stay launched now.  I’ve noticed this problem on some other apps I installed.
• Not sure why the Android Calendar and Contacts app won’t sync with my Gmail Calendar and Contacts.
• Google Earth crashes on the splash screen and requires a forced close.

Here’s a short video of the device in action.

More observations and issues:

• I absolutely love the 7″ device form factor.
• I love the ISP display panel.  I mostly use it with minimal brightness and 50% brightness at most.
• Android seems to suffer bit rot and needs to be rebooted twice a day.  The touch display gets laggy or worse, it starts clicking things all on its own.  Everything is fixed with a reboot, but it’s shocking how unstable Android is.
• I also had to download a task manager to kill processes.  I also tried a startup manager (think of it as MSCONFIG for Android) to prevent crapware from starting up.  Problem is that the startup manager automatically kills processes I don’t want killed, like the browser so I’ve had to uninstall it.  It also doesn’t seem to prevent those processes from launching, just kills them after they startup.
• Cut/paste doesn’t work for shit.  Copying text is a nightmare, and most input fields don’t give you a paste option.  Simple tasks like copying a URL to bit.ly and then inserting that shortened URL to the twitter app just don’t seem possible, and I can’t find a good cut/paste app for Android.
• A lot of applications and pages in Android don’t come with a previous-page button.  You really need a physical button for previous-page on Android OS.  The physical home button is a must though a lot of devices are shunning that.
• Despite all these problems, I still love the device.  I just wished Android wasn’t so damn buggy.
• Can’t wait till they update the Nook Color to Android 2.2.

Looks like the rooted Nook Color with Android 2.2 (it’s not 2.2 yet, that requires a different hack) is the way to go.  I mean where else can you get hardware equivalent to the Samsung Galaxy Tablet for $250 unlocked?  Unlocked Galaxy is $802 on Amazon!  Here’s the specs that excite me for this price.

• 7″ 1024×600 IPS panel (178° viewing angle like iPad)
• Capacitive multitouch
• ARM Cortex A8-based Ti OMAP 3621 @ 800 MHz (same processor as Droid 2 and Droid X)
• MicroSDHC slot
• Wi-Fi and theoretically BlueTooth capability if unlocked
• No mobile radio for HSPA or CDMA 3G, but that’s what my MiFi portable hotspot is for.

Full specs here.

Since it’s the Nook Color, it should have some fairly good continuing community support for future software upgrades. I’m going to pick one up tomorrow to play with, and Auto Nooter 2.12.15 here I go!

The limited custom Android 2.1 OS that the Nook Color came with is meant to keep you on their platform since they don’t look like they’re making much margin (if any) on the hardware.  This is some really awesome hardware for the price considering the fact that half the hardware in a smartphone would cost twice as much these days.  This is like four 3.5″ screens joined together and it’s small enough to go in a coat inside pocket.

UPDATE 12/17/2010 – So far so good.  Got the unit last night, used it 4 hours and haven’t charged it overnight, and it still 59% of the battery remaining.  I have to keep it at minimum brightness in a dim room and half brightness seems to be good in a normal lit room.  Full brightness would probably be useful outdoors (excluding directly under sun) and room near bright window.  Web browser seems to operate reasonably smooth.  Have not rooted yet.

Acer has just announced a new Android Smartphone with a 4.8″ 1024×480 resolution super-wide, and it is one sexy beast of a phone.  This form factor is as narrow as a normal smartphone can be while fitting inside a pocket.  In fact, I suspect that it’s probably not much wider than an iPhone though it is likely an inch or so taller.

Some people are suggesting that this is too wide of a form factor since the 21×9 format doesn’t fit 16×9 video format, but movies are often 1.85 or 2.35 “CinemaScope” format and that fits this display’s aspect ratio perfectly.  Furthermore, the super-wide or super-long format is perfect for reading webpages and it should reduce the need to pan and zoom.  The 1024 wide resolution also allows you to terminal server into a server with most of the desktop visible, and just a little up/down panning would make the entire desktop visible.  I’m hoping the device won’t be too expensive, but I think it’s the perfect largest pocket sized form factor a person can get.

Out of curiosity, I picked up a Cruz e-Reader from Fry’s for $160 this morning because it looked interesting with a 7″ 800×600 display running Android 2.0.  This device is apparently tied in with Borders bookstore and it doubles as a cheap Android tablet device.  After about 1 minute after I turned it on, I decided to seal it back up in the box so that it can be returned.

As a side note, the Black Friday sale at Fry’s Electronics stunk this year.  Nothing good in the processor memory section with no combo deals.

So what’s wrong with the device?  Well the chassis actually looked and felt nice with a rubbery non-slip surface in the back and it had an SDHC slot as well as decent speakers.  But it was completely ruined by the unresponsive performance of the user interface.  Tapping took forever to recognize and the scrolling was extremely choppy just about anywhere you went.  Yes I realize it’s positioned as an e-Reader, but I expect a bit more from a color device.  I didn’t even bother testing the video playback capability because the sluggish user interface was a nonstarter.

I’ve already got a 7″ Telechip 8902 based Android 2.1 tablet with 800×480 resolution being shipped to me and I expect a decent experience based on this video review (Telechips device form MP4nation.net was garbage, don’t bother).  Yes I realize it’s not nearly as nice as a Samsung Galaxy 7″ Tablet with 1024×600 resolution (which feels good in the hands and has a very responsive user interface), but the generic Telechip tablet is $430 cheaper and doesn’t require a data plan.  I’ve already got a MiFi for 5 Wi-Fi devices so I don’t want another data plan.

UPDATE 1/5/2011 - I ordered the Telechips based 7″ tablet from MP4nation.net and it took 6 weeks to get to me.  Then it came with a European AC power adapter which means I’ll have to buy another EU to US connector to use it.  The USB charging doesn’t work with any of the chargers I tried.

Biggest problem is that Android Market is broken on the device.

Device is far more sluggish than showed in the video and the resistive display requires a lot of pressure to make it work.  Screen surface doesn’t feel good rubbing, and the front edge feels too sharp that it is uncomfortable to hold.  It’s also a lot thicker than the Nook Color.  The back feels like cheap plastic instead of the rubbery grip on the Nook Color.

I recently fought with AT&T as a carrier and after reaching the end of my 2 year contract, I finally decided to change cellular providers to Sprint. While AT&T has a great reputation elsewhere, in my location, they have failed to provide 3G coverage and even have had outages as of late due to an influx of population related to the annual arrival of college students.

Coincidentally at the same time my contract was just about up, my Samsung Eternity suffered from a flaw in the screen that wouldn’t allow for me to dial from the right side of the screen. When having to dial a number composed of mostly sixes, I decided that my phone could no longer be of use and so I went in search of another phone.

I have chose to look to the Samsung Intercept as the answer to my prayers. The phone has a 3.2” touch screen with a full qwerty keyboard that is easily usable by even my larger sized hands. The Phone features the Android 2.1 Operating System with Google connectivity. Many things about the Android OS makes the phone great. After logging into my gmail account and porting over my contacts, my contacts needed some serious sorting, but everything was there and linking contacts seemed relatively easy.

The phone seemed to be sluggish at times. The processor is noticeably slower than the Epic and other more expensive phones. The phone even seems a bit more sluggish than the older Samsung Moment. Over all the feel of the phone is rather cheap compared to similar priced phones. Part of this could be because of the licensing of Google’s android. One thing that both the Epic and the Intercept seem to have issues with is home row of soft keys. I have seen an Epic which already has these keys not functioning the majority of the time. Although having access to TV as well as several apps from the Android market made the phone feel much more usable, the thoughts that the Android was a mobile internet device first and a phone second was quite frustrating. A few other items that nagged at me was the inability to change to notification settings to include custom ring tones. I could easily assign a custom ring tone to a contact, but when having 300 contacts, setting these up was a bit too much of a task than what I was willing to take on.

One additional feature that I had with my Samsung Eternity that I was hoping to get away from on my Samsung Intercept was pocket-dialing. I would lock the phone and simply by sliding the phone into my pocket, it would unlock and start surfing the web or some other task to which I was unaware of.  Apparently there is a copy of some Armymen game that I have yet to download because of this.

On a much more positive note, the integration of apps where one could easily upload and send off a picture taken by the phone is very much welcome. The Android OS makes most of this possible.  The older propriety OS on the Samsung Eternity didn’t seem to have as much integration.

While the phone has many advantages that make it a great device for connecting to the web and creating a great online experience, putting the phone functionality as a secondary feature makes the Samsung Intercept more of that phone that you want if you don’t care about talking on the phone. But for that web-centric integration device, the Intercept still does pretty well. But on a personal note, I would recommend saving your money for a HTC Evo or a Samsung Epic if you want your Android phone.  My personal bad review of the Intercept is not so much because of the weakness of the phone, but the weakness of the phone compared to the predecessor.  The Samsung Intercept screen is not as clean or crisp as the Samsung Moment.  The construction of the phone feels poorer compared to the Moment.  In fact, the inferiority of this phone almost makes me think that Samsung pushed the phone to keep an option open for the mid-range phone while really driving people to consider the Galaxy S phones.    So while this phone is in and of itself not a terrible phone, the fact that the device is a step down in quality yet in the same tier as the Moment does not please me and that is why I definitely feel that Samsung has lost my business at this time.

One late development that I have had with the phone is that the screen has a flaw and does not respond to touch in certain sections.  This is a second of Samsung’s devices which has me concerned about their quality at this time.  I definitely feel burnt by Samsung in this matter, but fortunately my carrier Sprint was ready and willing to fix the problem and replace the phone without any restocking fee.  So I will be doing a review of the HTC Evo 4 soon.