Nook Color: sneaky Android tablet

jercra

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Anyone tried upgrading to CM 7.1.0-RC yet on their nook. I'm seeing the option to update, but not sure if I want to go from a stable version to a release candidate.
I've been running on nightlies for a while now and I would say that if you're happy with what you have then stick with it. The Sleep Of Death issue has been quite horrible for about the past 50 builds. I used to charge my nook and leave it around the house for a few days and use it when I felt like it. Now, I charge it overnight, turn it on and it's dead within a few hours. Honestly, the SOD issue in the latest builds has made my favorite device almost useless. Keep with what you have unless you have a compelling reason to change, IMO. Once that's solved there may be enough reasons to go to the next version but not yet.
 

Bucknahs Bum Ankle

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I've been running on nightlies for a while now and I would say that if you're happy with what you have then stick with it. The Sleep Of Death issue has been quite horrible for about the past 50 builds. I used to charge my nook and leave it around the house for a few days and use it when I felt like it. Now, I charge it overnight, turn it on and it's dead within a few hours. Honestly, the SOD issue in the latest builds has made my favorite device almost useless. Keep with what you have unless you have a compelling reason to change, IMO. Once that's solved there may be enough reasons to go to the next version but not yet.
Thanks! That was exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for. I was under the assumption that a release candidate version should be more stable than a nightly, but your point is a good one. I'm pretty happy with the stable version of CM7 that I'm running now (I think it's 7.0.2; couldn't get the market to work in 7.0.3 as I recall) so it's probably not worth risking "sleep of death" or other issues. The only reason I asked is that the update option is being pushed to my notification bar. But I'll hold off until a new stable comes out.

Incidentally, I have noticed that my nook requires more frequent charging than it used to. I too used be able go a few days between charges. Now I charge it overnight and usually have to plug it back in while using it the next evening (after maybe some sporadic use during the day and heavier use in the evening). This wouldn't typically be much of a problem, except that my wifi reception in my bedroom (which is already low) is worse for some reason when it's plugged in and will frequently drop out. It never drops out when unplugged in my bedroom. Also, when plugged in and in use, the battery barely gains any charge. I seem to remember it used to charge up slowly even when in use and this is no longer the case. I wonder if it's related to having overclocked it?
 

jercra

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Thanks! That was exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for. I was under the assumption that a release candidate version should be more stable than a nightly, but your point is a good one. I'm pretty happy with the stable version of CM7 that I'm running now (I think it's 7.0.2; couldn't get the market to work in 7.0.3 as I recall) so it's probably not worth risking "sleep of death" or other issues. The only reason I asked is that the update option is being pushed to my notification bar. But I'll hold off until a new stable comes out.

Incidentally, I have noticed that my nook requires more frequent charging than it used to. I too used be able go a few days between charges. Now I charge it overnight and usually have to plug it back in while using it the next evening (after maybe some sporadic use during the day and heavier use in the evening). This wouldn't typically be much of a problem, except that my wifi reception in my bedroom (which is already low) is worse for some reason when it's plugged in and will frequently drop out. It never drops out when unplugged in my bedroom. Also, when plugged in and in use, the battery barely gains any charge. I seem to remember it used to charge up slowly even when in use and this is no longer the case. I wonder if it's related to having overclocked it?
It could be related to being overclocked but only because of the overclock settings. If you set the governor to Performance than it will chew your battery up pretty fast, even if you're not doing anything with it. Set to conservative or interactive and you get better battery life. I haven't seen any difference in actual performance with the governors set lower outside of quadrant scores.
 

Bucknahs Bum Ankle

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It could be related to being overclocked but only because of the overclock settings. If you set the governor to Performance than it will chew your battery up pretty fast, even if you're not doing anything with it. Set to conservative or interactive and you get better battery life. I haven't seen any difference in actual performance with the governors set lower outside of quadrant scores.
I meant to respond to this, but then went on vacation and forgot all about it. Anyway, mine was set to "on demand". I changed it to "conservative" and I have noticed some improvement in battery life. Haven't noticed a difference in actual performance, so I'll leave it there. Thanks for the tip.
 

jercra

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I meant to respond to this, but then went on vacation and forgot all about it. Anyway, mine was set to "on demand". I changed it to "conservative" and I have noticed some improvement in battery life. Haven't noticed a difference in actual performance, so I'll leave it there. Thanks for the tip.
Has anyone managed to get the NFL Sunday Ticket To Go to work on a Nook? It shows up nicely cell phone sized on mine (CM7 Nightly 172) which is very annoying.
 

Bucknahs Bum Ankle

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I don't have Sunday Ticket so I can't comment on that specifically. But MLB.TV works fairly well using the Netflix workaround (spoof as a Nexus S). Have you tried that?

BTW, the charging issue I posted about turned out to be the cord. Something went flaky with it and it was losing charge even when plugged in. I called B&N customer service and they shipped me a new charger and cord at no cost under the 1 year warranty.
 

jercra

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I don't have Sunday Ticket so I can't comment on that specifically. But MLB.TV works fairly well using the Netflix workaround (spoof as a Nexus S). Have you tried that?
I tried it to no avail. It turns out that the NFL Sunday Ticket app was just not made for tablets. Today the released a new app called "NFL Sunday Ticket for Tablets" but it's for Honeycomb tablets only and has a very limited set of supported devices. I haven't been able to get the apk yet to give it a shot and will update here when I do but it's not likely to work on the Nook without either switching to a pretty broken HC build with video decoding issues.
 

Bucknahs Bum Ankle

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Is anyone besides me and jerca still using their nook color as a tablet? Probably way late to the party here (as usual), but I just discovered a little tweak that helps the device get recognized in the market. Certain apps (like facebook, netflix, words with friends) recently (as in maybe a month or more ago) no longer recognized the device and wouldn't update. Going into build.prop and changing the resolution from 161 to 160 fixes this. You have to clear the market cache and reboot and then everything works normally again.
 

zenter

indian sweet
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Oct 11, 2005
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Is anyone besides me and jerca still using their nook color as a tablet? Probably way late to the party here (as usual), but I just discovered a little tweak that helps the device get recognized in the market. Certain apps (like facebook, netflix, words with friends) recently (as in maybe a month or more ago) no longer recognized the device and wouldn't update. Going into build.prop and changing the resolution from 161 to 160 fixes this. You have to clear the market cache and reboot and then everything works normally again.
What ROM are you using? I'm thinking of going back to stock (rooted). If Netflix and Kindle works on it, I'm a happy camper.
 

Bucknahs Bum Ankle

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What ROM are you using? I'm thinking of going back to stock (rooted). If Netflix and Kindle works on it, I'm a happy camper.
CM 7.0.3. Netflix works great, don't have kindle, but the nook app works well. For some reason the facebook app force closes every time since I got it to update. No big loss though as dolphin browser works perfectly fine for facebook.
 

jercra

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For those interested but not paying very close attention, the CM 7.1.0 Stable was released yesterday for the Nook Color. The changelog is here. It has lots of new stuff unless you've been running on the nightlies.
 

Bucknahs Bum Ankle

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Awesome, going to try upgrading tonight. Thanks!

Edit: Just wanted to followup and note that upgrading to CM 7.1.0 is a snap. The most significant improvement has been much slower battery drain. Battery life seems comparable to what it was before I installed CM, from what I can recall. I can go a couple of days between charges now with fairly heavy use.
 

TFP

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Edit: Nevermind, I'm an idiot, I figured it out. Installing 7.1 now, hopefully battery life is drastically improved because it is atrocious now.
 

Bucknahs Bum Ankle

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Here's a stupid problem. I lost my app drawer icon (I think my son might have dragged it in to the trash) and can't figure out how to get it back. Is there some way to reinstall it or recover it from the trash?
 

TFP

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Here's a stupid problem. I lost my app drawer icon (I think my son might have dragged it in to the trash) and can't figure out how to get it back. Is there some way to reinstall it or recover it from the trash?
Hold your finger down on the homescreen. It then brings up a menu that allows you to create an icon and choose "App drawer" or "App launcher" or whatever it's called. Then it drops that icon on the home screen for you.

I think you'll find it is. I can go at least a couple of days between charges with fairly regular use. It was horrible before I upgraded to 7.1
Something is up with my battery, I had it charging for like 8 hours and it's still got a ways to go before it's fully charged. Therefore I really haven't been able to test it on a full battery yet. We shall see.
 

Bucknahs Bum Ankle

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Hold your finger down on the homescreen. It then brings up a menu that allows you to create an icon and choose "App drawer" or "App launcher" or whatever it's called. Then it drops that icon on the home screen for you.
Cool, thanks. I knew I had gotten it to re-appear before but couldn't remember how.

Something is up with my battery, I had it charging for like 8 hours and it's still got a ways to go before it's fully charged. Therefore I really haven't been able to test it on a full battery yet. We shall see.
Are you sure it's your battery and not the cord? I had the same problem a few months back and posted about it in this thread. If you call up B&N customer service and tell them your cord and charger are no longer working properly, they will send you a new set for free. It's a known issue.
 

TFP

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I actually just bought a micro USB cord since my Nook charging cord broke and I needed one for my phone regardless. Would the B+N charging cord be any different?
 

Bucknahs Bum Ankle

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I've heard that some people have had problems with using generic cords not designed specifically for the nook. The problem with the original cords is they were easily damaged by the way they can get crimped right at the base of the unit when plugged in an in use, especially the way you hold it while reading in bed. The replacement is identical except more durable. The new one has been fine for me for about 5 months now. I think the original one started going on me after about the same amount of time. So hopefully this one will continue to hold up. Just call and tell them yours got damaged by crimping when you were trying to read in bed with it plugged in. They should send you a new one for free.
 

jayhoz

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Jul 19, 2005
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I actually just bought a micro USB cord since my Nook charging cord broke and I needed one for my phone regardless. Would the B+N charging cord be any different?
B+N, in their infinite wisdom, made their cord proprietary. It looks just like a micro USB cable, but it has extra wires/pins. You need a Nook specific cord/charger.
 

zenter

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Needed to do a warranty replacement on my NC yesterday thanks to LCD backlight weirdness. I had to restore it to stock using the 8x method, which thankfully worked. Obviously, the replacement is also stock, so I'm wondering if - now that the NC has a lot of apps (except Kindle) - it's still worth it to do CM 7.1? Other benefits I haven't thought of?
 

zenter

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B+N, in their infinite wisdom, made their cord proprietary. It looks just like a micro USB cable, but it has extra wires/pins. You need a Nook specific cord/charger.
This is a crime. If you hold the microUSB and Nook plug side-by-side, you'll see that the Nook plug is a bit longer. I thought that was just an artifact, but it turns out B&N wanted to hide the fact that their plug was proprietary. They might as well have used a better connection mechanism if they were going to do this, rather than pretend it was otherwise.
 

TFP

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Oh wow, definitely didn't realize that. The micro-USB definitely charges it, just very slowly. I'll give them a call.
 

jercra

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This is a crime. If you hold the microUSB and Nook plug side-by-side, you'll see that the Nook plug is a bit longer. I thought that was just an artifact, but it turns out B&N wanted to hide the fact that their plug was proprietary. They might as well have used a better connection mechanism if they were going to do this, rather than pretend it was otherwise.
While I agree that they should have just used a micro-USB plug, the plug isn't entirely proprietary. You can use a standard m-USB cable to connect the Nook to your computer for data transfers and such.

On a totally different subject, I just upgraded my Nook to ICS yesterday. It's laggy and the battery life is very bad compared to 7.2 but the upgrade in general usability is worth it to me. Anyone else upgraded yet?
 

Seven Costanza

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I rooted several months ago using the same Huskermania videos we all did. I need something that shows me literally step by step what to do. Something so easy a trained monkey could do it.

Can anyone point me to a good resource for updating to cynogenmod 7.1 or 7.2 or whatever the newest/best/fastest thing is?
 

jercra

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I rooted several months ago using the same Huskermania videos we all did. I need something that shows me literally step by step what to do. Something so easy a trained monkey could do it.

Can anyone point me to a good resource for updating to cynogenmod 7.1 or 7.2 or whatever the newest/best/fastest thing is?
Here is the full update guide. I would go with 7.2 if you want fast and stable. The newest thing is ICS but it's REALLY new and a bunch of stuff doesn't work yet (like games and video). It's really, really hard do permanent damage to your Nook this way so have fun and don't worry about screwing things up.
 

TFP

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So I fell asleep with my Nook on and the display active and when I woke up it had lost 30% battery. Yet I shut the display off when going to work today and when I came back it lost only 1% of battery. So lesson is, get the display timer on and don't leave it on.

Early returns are very positive.
 

NHbeau

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Where are you guys currently standing with these? Pretty sure I am going to pick up a Nook color and root/cynagenmod it. Battery life etc all worked out? Any common bugs you guys are getting?
 

mt8thsw9th

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So I was at my parents' house and I saw their old (and unused for a year or so) Nook in their computer room, and it got me to thinking how much use people got out of these $250 things. Is anyone still using theirs? With hindsight, the existence of the first Nexus a year later at a $199 price point makes the $250 price tag seem insane, but most aren't psychic (and don't care to wait for an unknown period of time for something better and/or cheaper).