Move Over Apple, My Tablet Cost $200
online.wsj.com
online.wsj.com
I had a Kia that did the job for 230,000 miles. If all you want is transportation, it does the job.
If you want all the nice things that come with a BMW, however, well, you get what you pay for.
From the article: "Of course, it's hardly the same as an iPad or a Xoom or a Galaxy. It doesn't have any cameras. It has a slower processor. It's not for power users. The video support is pretty limited. A few Android programs still won't run on it. And dedicated gamers will doubtless find it frustrating."
It's an attention grabbing headline which is the purpose of a headline. But the author is not truly comparing Apples and Oranges. He simply wanted to highjack eyeballs.
Did you do anything special beyond regular maintenance? Any big surgeries?
I haven't owned a Kia, nor do I have anything against them, I'm just being pedantic and pointing out that you could fulfill a 100k powertrain warranty and still end up with a car that's mostly trash. :-)
I'm a huge fan. I now own a Kia soul. In the two years I've had it it's been rock solid.
I have one, it's got 140,000 miles on it, but it still runs like a top and I have absolutely no desire to sell it (and selling it would be easy. I work in the automotive industry).
(Here's my jeep: http://thingist.com/t/item/4204/ - bone stock and I love it).
To stay on topic, I think there is something to be said about the "cheap" brands. My Jeep, is a "cheap" car (it's worth about $5000), but it's a workhorse. I don't think twice about hauling the dog around in it after she's been swimming in the mud, I don't bat an eye when I need to literally pressure-wash the interior, I patched a hole in one of the seats with duct tape, I once made a top for it out of a tarp and some rope (I had my little sister with me and it started raining), there are scratches along the back tailgate from loading it full of mountain bikes and shuttling them up the side of a mountain, I've slept in the back of it many times, etc. etc.
A friend of mine has a Porsche Cayenne. It's really nice, and has a matching +$100,000 price tag. He doesn't let the dogs in it, he covers the leather seats with a blanket when he sets anything on top of them, it's never left the pavement, spilling anything on the interior would be a catastrophe, etc.
From my perspective, he's getting less value for his $100,000 than I am for my $5,000 because he's constantly afraid of breaking it or spoiling it (well, losing on his investment, more accurately).
I think the Porsche vs Jeep debate could be the same as the Nook vs iPad debate. Yeah, an iPad can "do more", it's more valuable, costs more money, it's shinier, it has a faster processor, it's a "better".
But I think I'd be in constant fear of breaking it. It would probably stay in my house most of the time. The nook, on the other hand, costs 1/4 of an iPad, it would go with me everywhere.
Somebody like me would probably get more value out of a nook than an iPad, despite the iPad being technically better.
I might not want a Kia but I certainly don't want to bother with a BMW. I need transportation more than I need to make a fashion statement. So far, nobody is making a tablet for me -- a nice affordable Honda.
And the book does make a decent cheap tablet, not as good as a full tablet, but it does a lot of stuff, more than an just read books.
I do not understand people who get upset at these comparisons.
Thanks for the datapoint. I drove a rental Kia once, and it was...not totally crap, but lacking in fit-and-finish (e.g., the steering wheel vibrated a lot). But that was in 1996; it's good to know they've improved.
However, and this is where the metaphor perks up instead of breaking down, the BMW is not in fact enormously ahead in every category. In most it is only fractionally ahead, and there are even a few where you could argue the toss (I get good mileage, but that is because I don't usually drive like a maniac. :D
Likewise with the Apple products. Usually they are fractionally better in lots of small ways, with perhaps one or two glaring exceptions either way, e.g. awesome battery life, but you can't change the battery.
Currently the two main systems I'm using are Apple and Win 7. With both I have a mouse with a scroll wheel. Scrolling is just a little bit better on the Mac than on Windows. Is this a deal-breaker? Does this one thing mean that Windows is OMG teh-suxxors? Of course not.
But the little things do add up.
Similarly with the iPad vs competitors. I saw one youtube video where some fanboy was gushing over his iPad competitor, but even he noticed that it took awhile (~30 seconds) to boot up. The iPad boots significantly faster than that. Is that a deal-breaker? Of course not. But the little things do add up.
Something else that perplexes me is that even when a window has focus sometimes it still won't scroll. Doesn't matter how many times I click on it. But if I go to the sidebar and jiggle that, it gains the ability to respond to the scroll wheel again. Odd.
As to the economics, B&N owns the retail distribution of this product. So a big win over other android tablets is that it doesn't need to tack in another 30-40% markup for retail stores. Apple makes at least 30% on the iPad and the iPad is bigger with much higher BOM costs. So at $250 it is very likely that Nook color is making a decent profit for B&N. B&N has a winner on this one, they own the distribution and don't have to pay for the software development (at least the majority of it).
Too heavy? C'mon, really? Yes, it's heavier than a Nook. But to say the iPad is useless is hyperbole at best and misleading at worst.
I read many kindle books relaxed back on my recliner, Kindle in one hand - is that easy to do with the iPad?
By comparison, I can hold my 6" Sony Reader (or the Nook Color I had for a few days) indefinitely.
And, yes, I do realize that the iPad is heavy for good reason: it's got a bleeping big battery.
They're hedging their entire company on a product which their main competitor is going to start giving away. They'll need to make a lot from the sale of the books to make up for that.
http://www.infendo.com/nintendo-3ds-wont-be-sold-at-a-loss-s...
The tradeoff they made was using significantly cheaper, lower-performance hardware, skipping HD and leaning on the uniqueness of the motion control tech to move units. It proved to be brilliant, and while Sony and Microsoft's console business struggled for years, Nintendo's been raking in the profits.
Unfortunately, the Nooks have tried to compete on hardware features and don't have any disruptive technology equivalent to the motion controls. The Kindle is the simplest, cheapest ebook reader out there, so if their competitors want to do a loss-leader strategy, they'll need a bigger subsidy than Amazon.
I wonder how good the Frommer's and Lonely Planet guides are on Nook...
This is a razor/razorblade situation in a rapidly emerging market. If B&N is letting AMZN undercut them by even $1 more than necessary on the purchase decision that _defines_ which company a customer will buy their books from (and probably their next reader as well), they're idiots.
Coffee++
As far as touchscreen tablets though, as pioneers of the market they didn't have anyone else to position themselves against, besides Archos.
I think the second part of your comment would apply to netbooks, too. It's just that nobody takes note of them in the same way because they don't seem as novel as iPads.
Power Installed battery (8 hours with Wi-fi off)
CPU 800 Mhz ARM Cortex-A8-based TI OMAP3621[1] PowerVR SGX 530 (unconfirmed)
Storage capacity 8GB internal storage, 32GB expandable
Memory 512MB
Display 7-inch 1024 x 600 px WSVGA IPS LCD at 170 ppi
Input Capacitive multitouch screen with side Volume, Nook Home, and Power buttons.
Connectivity Wi-Fi USB
Dimensions 8.1 in (210 mm) (h), 5.0 in (130 mm) (w), 0.48 in (12 mm) (d), Weight 15.8 oz (450 g)
It's much easier to consider buying a $200 tablet. I can't see that a tablet would be useful enough to me to spend the few extra hundred dollars to get a more powerful one.
A lot of this is due to how the nook honeycomb image was done (it's a mashup of gingerbread+developer preview image components) and should be better once Google pushes out the Honeycomb AOSP code drop. This could also just be related to my install since other people on various threads aren't seeing some of the issues I am. The more polished Froyo and CM7 (Gingerbread) images run decently well but aren't as smooth as my Droid Incredible running its stock image.
That said, I'm happy with it as a ebook reader and web browser and it fits in my coat pocket, which is good for the subway. I like the OS changes in Honeycomb well enough to put up with the screwiness in the image.
I'd take a kindle over the iPad if it was easier on my eyes. I know that wouldn't suit everyone - but I'm sure there is a market there.
You are running Android on the Nook 3G with the black and white (eink) screen?
To get the $200 deal, you don't "go" pick one up. At least when I bought mine, it was only available in their ebay store using a coupon. Shipping was free.
On the other hand, you can't exactly market a barcode scanner to the general audience...
Move over Apple, the geeks have done something only geeks will do, and B&N might sell another couple percent because of it. And let me know when it can play 3D games at the framerates the iPad (much less the iPad2) achieves.
The Nook Color is great in all ways except one: video. No Netflix client available or forthcoming, no streaming from NAS a la Air Video Server, and no VNC. No good hardware-assisted video players either, especially not for free.
Otherwise it's a great deal for $250 and works very well as a Kindle reader, web browser, e-mail client, etc., and as a good way to dip your toes into the Android tablet market.
That, and the WiFi on mine was flaky; a couple of times per day, it would drop out, and not reliably come back until I rebooted. That was the main reason I returned it.
Don't think this is legal, as the exception to the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause only applies to "wireless telephone handsets" [1]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Ac...
Installing the Android Market, Gmail, and other non-opensource Google apps is probably not legal, but Google has shown a deliberate lack of interest in preventing that.
Exactly, why don't the companies hear us. Why do Samsung and Moto keep putting their Android skin if we hate it. Why don't Apple listen to us when we ask for a better web browser with tabs and Flash and a good notification system. Why do a bunch of hackers can hack t and make it better and the giant corp can't.......... ridiculous !
I just bought a Moleskine, sure it can't do fancy videos, and it can't really surf the web, but neither can the hacked Nook for $200. And with a small hack I can even read books from Amazon on this device! I just print them out and glue them between the Moleskine's pages.
Of course, there's always cheaper hardware with less functions - but why make this a wsj article?
I had a Kia that did the job for 230,000 miles. If all you want is transportation, it does the job.
If you want all the nice things that come with a BMW, however, well, you get what you pay for.
From the article: "Of course, it's hardly the same as an iPad or a Xoom or a Galaxy. It doesn't have any cameras. It has a slower processor. It's not for power users. The video support is pretty limited. A few Android programs still won't run on it. And dedicated gamers will doubtless find it frustrating."
It's an attention grabbing headline which is the purpose of a headline. But the author is not truly comparing Apples and Oranges. He simply wanted to highjack eyeballs.
I wonder what the reasoning behind this move is.