Many human beings don’t understand this, however below the hood, the corner color is without a doubt an android tablet. It really is right, a version of the android working system that powers thousands and thousands of smartphones and pills like the samsung galaxy tab. Barnes & noble advanced a custom model of android 2.1 to strength its popular e-reader and while you reflect onconsideration on it, at $249, it’s a actual deal on the subject of android pills.
It may not have the equal excessive-overall performance processor as the galaxy tab, but it has a exquisite display and the hardware is quite capable, specifically considering it is half the charge of complete-fledged tablets. However in its default state, the nook color is hobbled; extremely good e-reader, however very constrained apps.
Whilst barnes & noble is talking up an upcoming android 2.2 improve for the corner colour, including an app keep, some of us are developing impatient. It is possible to upgrade your corner shade to run honeycomb, the today’s and finest version of android, one that’s been optimized for tablets rather than smartphones. The good news is that the heavy lifting has already been executed and upgrading a corner color to run honeycomb or other android versions is highly easy to do. Higher but, the usage of the technique mentioned beneath, turning your corner coloration into a totally purposeful android tablet isn’t handiest distinctly truthful, but it is able to be carried out with out voiding your assurance.
Outside twin boot: no want to root
Rooting an android device like a corner shade manner which you are giving yourself root degree get entry to to the operating system; in other words, you benefit administrative levels of accessibility (the best level of permissions) such as the ability to exchange factors which have been locked down and to get entry to low-stage gadget documents and directories.
You can have heard the term ‘jailbreaking’ used with an iphone and rooting your corner coloration is largely the identical concept. Once you’ve got rooted an android device, you’ve got entire control of the tool.
Needless to say, having root stage get right of entry to has its risks. If you don’t know what you’re doing, it is all too clean to delete an important file or change a setting that disables your tool. Manufacturers warn against rooting their devices because it adjustments the intended capability, can motive aid nightmares and might end in larger issues. The final results can be a ‘bricked’ device that not functions. Rooting your corner colour can void its guarantee and we wouldn’t advise you try this.
However there’s any other choice that doesn’t require touching your default configuration; in truth, you do not install some thing in your nook shade. You want to be reasonably relaxed in the usage of your laptop’s disk tools, but by no means do you need to be a hacker. So long as you can run a disk imaging utility (and input a few traces into the osx terminal if you’re a mac person), you will be great.
The nook shade has a microsd card slot and installing a bootable, digital photo of honeycomb (or every other android taste, if desired) on a microsd card is now a possibility.
Going this course gives you the choice of booting your corner coloration into honeycomb without touching the default running machine set up at the device and with out voiding your assurance. You will need a mac or windows laptop with the intention to create the honeycomb boot photo and a microsd card you’re inclined to erase (the reminiscence card calls for 4gb or more of storage have to be as a minimum a category four card in phrases of study/write speed). The stairs to growing the honeycomb bootable microsd card are as follows:
- Mount the reminiscence card in your computer.
- Download a replica of a digital photograph of your android taste of desire. You may have to google this one (when you consider that lots of those pics are primarily based on builders’ preview variations of android builds, places trade regularly).
- Unzip the disk photo.
- Write the android disk photograph to the sd card.
- Unmount the reminiscence card from your computer.
- Power down your corner colour.
- Insert the microsd card into your corner color.
- Power on the nook colour.
If the whole thing labored nicely, your corner color will boot into the android version you chose, making it a fully purposeful android tablet. Now not bad for twenty minutes really worth of labor. All of your setting changes, downloads, and change from this point will take place on that reminiscence card, maintaining the nook shade’s on board storage pristine. That is where the microsd card selection could have an effect to your revel in. Due to the fact everything is jogging off of that memory card (in preference to internal reminiscence), the study/write velocity and potential of the card can have an impact on performance: elegance four is ready as slow as you may break out with and class 6 or 10 ought to make the enjoy faster. Likewise, 4gb does not give you an entire ton of room for the os itself and apps, so in case you need to make huge use of your corner colour’s newfound competencies, you might need to remember a higher capability memory card.
The first-rate a part of the twin boot technique is that whilst you’re ready to head lower back to your inventory corner coloration, all you need to do is strength the device down, cast off the microsd card and electricity returned up once more. Voila, returned to nook shade.