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Should You Pay $35 to Root Your Nook Color?

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Afraid to open up the terminal or command prompt on your Mac or PC to perform the dark art of rooting your shiny new Barnes and Noble Nook Color? You can still have the power of a rooted Nook without the fear for the low-cost of $35, thanks to Nook2Android, a service that does all the dirty work. $35 and you can boot the Nook Color with a pre-formatted Sandisk micro-SD card which will load Android, while never touching the internal memory of your Nook Color. Your Nook Color dual boots into either the stock OS or a full version of Android on the card.

Nook2Android Website

The Value of a Rooted Nook Color

Why would anyone want to root the color eReader from Barn’s and Noble? Four reasons:

  1. Android! The Nook Color runs a limited version of Google’s upstart mobile OS with its own app store to go along with the electronic books and periodicals.
  2. Apps! The number of apps in the Barnes and Noble store is smaller than the Android Market or even the Amazon App Store for Android.
  3. Price! Apps generally cost more through Barnes and Noble than they do through Google or Amazon. Amazon offers one free app everyday.
  4. Functionality! A rooted Nook Color can be used to remotely access a PC, watch Netflix or Hulu and more.

The Genius of a Dual Booting Nook Color

Nook2Android offers preformatted Sandisk micro-SD cards running Android 2.3 Gingerbread and the Android Market. When it arrives just power down your Nook Color and slide the card into the slot. Turn it on and it will automatically boot from the card, as the makers designed it to boot from the card first if it finds an OS, and the internal memory second if there is no properly formatted OS on the card.

There are a number of pre-installed apps on the card like:Kindle on the Nook Color

  • Gmail
  • Facebook
  • Pandora
  • Nook
  • Kindle
  • Tune-In Radio
  • Netflix
  • Hulu Plus
  • Android Market

In our house we use a rooted Nook Color. I enjoyed the more powerful rooted Android version while my wife liked the simplicity of the stock OS of the Nook Color.

Do It Yourself and Save Money

Nook2Android removes the fear of rooting the Nook Color yourself. We question the need for this, though. Follow the simple guide available here at GottaBeMobile, or in the Nook Color forum at XDA Developer’s Forum. You can root your own Nook Color and save yourself $23.40. A good micro-SD card costs only $11.59 at Amazon. Is the task of setting up the card worth $23.40? If your answer is yes, then Nook2Android provides peace of mind.

Here are their three options:

  • 8GB card – $34.99
  • 16GB card – $49.99
  • 32GB card – $89.99

If you choose to make the purchase, buy the 16GB card. 16GB doesn’t fill up as fast on a Nook as it does on other tablets or an iPad. The middle option costs only $15 more. The 32GB card is overkill unless you plan to load a lot of media files, like music or pictures, on the card. Android is still not a great movie watching platform, so don’t think you will need extra space for large video files.

Source: Gigaom

4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. Shawn Cummings

    07/18/2011 at 3:51 pm

    This is no different then paying someone to change my car’s oil.  Sure I can do it myself for free (minus parts) – but I don’t want to bother.  

  2. Djtipy4001

    12/06/2011 at 8:47 pm

    Best thing I ever did was spend the money and get a preloaded ad card. Love it

  3. Our4sons mom

    12/28/2011 at 9:48 am

    I just had my NOOK color rooted by Best Buy, it is now showing the Android Screen, but I cannot locate the stock B&N Color screen.  Recommendations appreciated. 

    • false1

      02/17/2012 at 1:18 pm

      Didn’t know Best Buy did that. I recommend you ask Best Buy about it. The reason the article suggests using a card is that all you have to do is pop the card out and you can boot back into the stock OS. BTW, I bought my 8GB card on Ebay for $18. Works like a charm.

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