Surprise! I'm happy with the NT - Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet

Thought I'd post a contrary opinion (based on many of the threads here and on other sites).
I REALLY like my NT! I've come up Handsprings, Palms, Pres, and iPads, so this isn't my first visit to the rodeo. Currently, I've got the NT and a Sprint Evo 3D.
Yes, out of the box there's some gaps, but a bit of time here and other forums have offered suggestions on side-loading, sync'ing my Evo apps, and tweaking the KT. It's not the end-all-and-be-all pad,but for the price, it does well.
The biggest issue I had was the lack of offline media, since I spend 12-15 hours a week in the air. However, a bit of cross-syncing and I've got my Amazon MP3 library and a couple of pretty good media players.
Am I missing things? Well, I'd really like bluetooth for my freedom keyboard and being able to see my side loaded apps from the main launcher would be nice, but at this moment, I'm finding the KT to be a fine investment.
Oh, and I have moved my new media purchases over to BN. I figure tossing them some bucks only encourages them to keep Nook development going.

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I'm really happy with mine too. Its super snappy, feels much more polished than the nook color did. Plus I love reading and reading is an absolute pleasure on this thing.

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I absolutely adore my NT, granted its my first tablet, but its ridiculous how much i can do with it for the price i paid. Not to mention it hasnt even been rooted yet!

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Ok, I have to ask because I keep seeing things go back and forth:
If one could get a NC or NT for the same price (hypothetically), which would they choose? The rooted NC? Or the "upgraded" NT?
I currently have the NC and I can get my gf to get me a NT for christmas bc she wants my NC. Is it worth the trade?

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Well, since I haven't found too much I couldn't do without a touch of effort, I'm not feeling the pain of not being able to root. Sure, it may come later, but, yeesh, I've only had the NT for 3 days!!

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preppyr6 said:
Ok, I have to ask because I keep seeing things go back and forth:
If one could get a NC or NT for the same price (hypothetically), which would they choose? The rooted NC? Or the "upgraded" NT?
I currently have the NC and I can get my gf to get me a NT for christmas bc she wants my NC. Is it worth the trade?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The nook tablet. The difference in speed alone is worth it, the nook color felt underpowered to me even rooted.

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Ditto.
On paper, the specs are simply hardware upgrade...this much B&N got it right. In reality, it makes the the device more responsive and more enjoyable user experience. The jerky delay in NC drove me nuts.

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I have owned the xoom, asus transformer, galaxy tab 10.1, htc flyer and got rid of them all. The one reason? The tegra 2 processor. These devices were hamstrung in the video playback department, a fundemental functional of a media tablet. The NT plays the same hd media files i couldn't on these high end devices FLAWLESSLY. If you ask me this alone makes the nook tablet worth it.
Sent from my BNTV250 using xda premium

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My tablet history has been:
Viewsonic Gtab (Awful. Just awful. Don't ever even look at one)
Nook Color (1.1ghz OC and still slow to my tastes)
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (The designer of the Tegra 2 should be impaled as punishment)
Nook Tablet (It does what I wanted except run Google stuff)
What I had wanted was to watch 720p shows in bed or plane or between classes. NT has been the only thing that could do that except my phone (SGS Fascinate).
Even without a root ever coming to be and having to deal with sideloading I still think this is the best tablet I have ever owned. And it's made by a damn bookstore >.>

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There some flaws but I bought it mainly for browsing the internet. It really excels at that! I have mainly been using dolphin, not the stock browser. Overall I am extremely satisfied with my purchase. I was at Best Buy today and checked out the kindle fire. It was cool but I really didnt like size of it. I have big hands and like how now matter how i hold my nook its always comfortable. The only thing I really want to change is the crappy keyboard
About the not seeing sideloaded apps, I installed go launcher. From there I use a combo of widget locker, Wave launcher(right side of the screen), and button savior( left side of the screen). I also learned to fear the nook button. I havnt seen the stock nook launcher in over a day now.

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Drewmungus said:
There some flaws but I bought it mainly for browsing the internet. It really excels at that! I have mainly been using dolphin, not the stock browser. Overall I am extremely satisfied with my purchase. I was at Best Buy today and checked out the kindle fire. It was cool but I really didnt like size of it. I have big hands and like how now matter how i hold my nook its always comfortable. The only thing I really want to change is the crappy keyboard
About the not seeing sideloaded apps, I installed go launcher. From there I use a combo of widget locker, Wave launcher(right side of the screen), and button savior( left side of the screen). I also learned to fear the nook button. I havnt seen the stock nook launcher in over a day now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have noticed that using the n button in certain situations (ex: during video in MX Player, certain games) it acts as a back button. Don't fear the n just treat it like a very "special" friend.

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I've driven twice to a B&N store and played with the device. As of right now, I still haven't taken the plunge because of three big reasons:
1) I need a web browser that can let me access an Extranet of my work place, and when I used the NT stock browser, the login page button doesn't even show up as a button, but just a jpeg. I know using the Android stock nameless browser, it isn't a problem at all. So it's a huge issue for me.
2) Even if I can get the web browser issue resolved, I am fearful how B&N has the unilateral ability to update the NT without our consent (unless specifically block B&N incoming traffic), we'll lose the ability to sideload and send us back to stone age. (It wouldn't be an issue if root is accomplished)
3) The 1gb user content space wouldn't an issue if we can root it, but now it seems like a huge deal. (Again, it wouldn't be an issue if root is accomplished)
Are my concerns legitimate? I firmly believe the NT could be huge, but right now, we just need to be patient and let our devs gurus find an exploit, or somehow we can get B&N to loosen up the grip on the bootloader.

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rvr350 said:
I've driven twice to a B&N store and played with the device. As of right now, I still haven't taken the plunge because of three big reasons:
1) I need a web browser that can let me access an Extranet of my work place, and when I used the NT stock browser, the login page button doesn't even show up as a button, but just a jpeg. I know using the Android stock nameless browser, it isn't a problem at all. So it's a huge issue for me.
2) Even if I can get the web browser issue resolved, I am fearful how B&N has the unilateral ability to update the NT without our consent (unless specifically block B&N incoming traffic), we'll lose the ability to sideload and send us back to stone age. (It wouldn't be an issue if root is accomplished)
3) The 1gb user content space wouldn't an issue if we can root it, but now it seems like a huge deal. (Again, it wouldn't be an issue if root is accomplished)
Are my concerns legitimate? I firmly believe the NT could be huge, but right now, we just need to be patient and let our devs gurus find an exploit, or somehow we can get B&N to loosen up the grip on the bootloader.
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Click to collapse
Well, issue 2 is definitely legitimate. Issue 1, just go to the store and install dolphin on one of their nooks, see if you can login to work.
Issue 3, if the rumors are true that they will be able to repartition the space in a week or so then, well, not an issue.

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if the nook tablets bootloader is truly locked, then say good bye to ever, ever seeing a beautiful custom kernel on the nook tablet to perform tweaks such as overclocking. This also makes it difficult to create custom roms. cyanogenmod 7 is a possibility with 2nd init. cyanogenmod 9 is also a possibility, but unless official ics is dished out to the nook tablet, then we will get cyanogenmod 9 2nd init with gingerbread libs.. Someone should send a rather nasty note to barnes & noble about this.

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Re: 1GB usable - It's a legitimate support issue. You (and everyone concerned) should call support and light a fire.
Front-line grunts won't be able to help you (a good thing), so ask to escalate it to as high as you can go. Your first response will be to get the tech's name. Your last response will be, "I'm sorry you can't help me with this issue. Please refer me to someone who can. If no other tech is available, please let me speak to your manager."
Don't get discouraged if you get blown off or hit a dead-end. Redial and retry. Social engineering is about patience and persistence. Always be polite, but firm.
Once you get to someone who knows his bits and bytes, then soften your tone and get friendly. Talk shop. Use the occasion to ask about other techy things, like, eh, locked bootloader. Get whatever info you can, including the dude's extension number so you can call him back.
The strategy is to leverage a legitimate support issue to get info about the things you really want to know. To do that, you'll have to troll their support services, and have some social engineering skill. It's probably best done in a team, but you can be the Lone Ranger if you're good.
BTW, techsupps have scripts, and you should have one as well. Plan everything you want to say in advance, and type them out.
Anyway, at the very least, you will get the 1GB issue logged and escalated.

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I honestly don't think they're going to bother blocking this loophole. There's really nothing in it for them but bad press. Currently they can sell a tablet to regular folks, while at the same time offering a tablet that's also appealing to techie types (but without having to advertise it). There's really no advantage in blocking the loophole.
Also I'm wondering: is there NO way to block updates from Barnes and Noble? No way to tell the device to notify before actually updating? I understand that B&N will push out updates without any warning, but isn't there a way that WE can decide to accept them or not? Or is it really just totally out of our hands?

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to whooever it was who thought the HTC flyer was running a tegra 2: it's not. It's a 1.5 ghz single core.
So far, the t2 seems fine in conjunction with mx video player and the software decode on the things I've tried it on. but I'm not mostly using a tablet for video, so the fact that a PAL formatted disc image I have makes trouble is ok by me. I will say, though, that the single core chip in the Samsung media player seems faster than the t2 or the (admittedly brief) run I took at an NT this evening. I didn't walk out of BN needing desperately to replace my NC, though - manual nooter, 1.1 ghz kernel, seemed relatively comparable to what I saw, but I wasn't ready to actually test carefully.
The NT is rooted as of today, via zergrush. This should make it possible to redo the partitioning. The bootloader's another issue; I don't know if anyone has tried looking at putting the little guy into fastboot and seeing if oem unlock is an accepted command. It may be. Unlocking it may turn off Netflix support, but it should open up avenues for complete custom ROMs.
On blocking OTA updates: probably fairly simple. D/l the OTA and look at the build id strings in build.prop. Update build.prop on your device accordingly. I've blocked the 1.3 update this way, and it works great.
It will probably not work cleanly for blocking the 1.4 update, though, if that's a Gingerbread update, since to get the block you probably have to tell the device not just that it's running the current BN build, but that it's also running a Gingerbread vintage OS - but I don't know about that.
There are some sqlite hacks for blocking updates as well - setting an autoupdate flag to "false," basically. I'm not sure how well they work, but blocking the update is always a topic of discussion immediately after one's released and no one's figured out how easy it is to pop yet
My real question on the NT is whether it contains a complete recovery image. Very few Android devices are as idiot-proof as the NC. Most of the "recovery" modes I've seen don't offer the ability to return the device to a true stock state. The NC, at least, is fully recoverable.
To me, that makes the NC one of the most useful Android platforms out there, and if the NT can't do that, then it's not really much of an upgrade for me -- I screw things up. Often. Badly.

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roustabout said:
My real question on the NT is whether it contains a complete recovery image. Very few Android devices are as idiot-proof as the NC. Most of the "recovery" modes I've seen don't offer the ability to return the device to a true stock state. The NC, at least, is fully recoverable.
To me, that makes the NC one of the most useful Android platforms out there, and if the NT can't do that, then it's not really much of an upgrade for me -- I screw things up. Often. Badly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm fairly certain that it does have a full recovery image imbedded somewhere. Yesterday I tried in stalling Chainfire (which apparently messes with the filesystem) in order to get full access to the GPU and fool the market, making all apps show up. After installing it, which required a reboot, my NT went into a boot-loop. I could not power it off and with no recovery available I thought I was toast and out of $260. However, after many (10?) failed boots it automatically went into Factory Reset mode and did a complete wipe.
I'm not sure how deep of a tailspin this recovery can get you out of but there is definitely a safety net there.

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I have to agree with the OP. I am very happy with my NT. It is very snappy and with the ability to sideload apps I have been able to fill in what I feel was missing. Battery life on this is very good. I did buy this hoping I could boot off an sd card, but if it ends up not possible I will still be pleased with my investment.