Now that I’ve had my NOOKColor a few months, there are a few things I wish it had. I know some of these are due to the fact that I’ve been spoiled by my HTC EVO, but many of them are just common sense items.
1. Dedicated back button – When I’m scanning books in my library, throughout different folders, I’d like to be able to go back using a back button. As it stands now, I have to go to the homepage (or library page), adding at least one additional step.
2. Cursor buttons on the keyboard – This would be helpful when typing. Because the device doesn’t feature an auto-correct option (something most Android based systems have), there are a lot of misspellings. Having cursors available would have a lot of time and energy when needing to correct them.
3. “Share” feature available on sideloaded documents (something the Kindle now has) – One of the things I love best about the device is being able to share passages with Twitter and Facebook. Unfortunately that option isn’t available for content that wasn’t purchased and downloaded direct from B&N. The Kindle offers it for all content, even sideloaded.
4. Ability to move sideloaded items onto the home page – similarly, I don’t like that I can’t move books I loaded myself to the homepage. I can only add books that were purchased through B&N. I’d love to be able to add my current read, or books I need to review, to the homepage.
5. A kickstand – My EVO has a kickstand, which makes it easy to prop it up to watch videos or read without having to hold it. I wish the NOOKColor had something similar. It’s a lot heavier than the NOOK 3G and the Kindle, so holding it for long periods of time is uncomfortable. Having a kickstand would really be helpful.
6. Access to the Android Market – I don’t use my device for more than reading very often, but there have been a few times I played a game or listened to music on it. I wish I could transfer some of my favorite apps over from my EVO to use on my NOOKColor. Barring that, I’d like to see what apps B&N has created for the device. There have been a lot of rumors about an upgrade to the Android OS, but I haven’t heard anything to back that up from B&N.
For the most part, I really like the device. With a few minor changes it could be fabulous.
pssst… Holly… yor wish #6 can be granted if you’re very brave. Do a google search on ROOT NOOK as Android Tablet.
From what I gather, Android Honeycomb can be run from an SD card (less risky but runs slower) or rooted into the Nook’s internal memory (far more risky but runs faster).
A lot of legit tech sites have detailed articles on all this. In fact, you can even shell out for someone else to do it for you (in a way) because you can go to ebay to buy SD cards to root your Nook with Honeycomb.
I don’t own one so I can’t speak as a voice of experience.
@Bev(QB) – Hey you, it’s been a long time!
I meant to include a note about Rooting in the body of the post but spaced it out.
When the NOOKColor was first released there were rumors going around that B&N would be releasing an update to the Android 2.2 OS and allowing developers to create apps exclusively for the device. That’s what I’m waiting for.
If they don’t release the update soon (or if I don’t hear something official from them about it) I’ll probably root. In the meantime…I’ll just complain about it. 🙂