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.
He's publishing online; of course he wants eyeballs. But not many people know that the Nook can do double duty as an entry level tablet, with access to the full Android market. Given the cheaper price, I'd say this is a worthwhile article, in the sense that it will probably steer certain people away from overpaying for designer tech they don't need.
If you're smart, you don't pay full price for a BMW. I bought my coupe for not much more than the KIA would have cost. In every respect it beats the KIA, except for the carcinogenic new car smell.
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.
If you install KatMouse (http://ehiti.de/katmouse/) it boosts Windows' scrolling functionality so you can scroll background windows without giving them the focus or bringing them to the front. (Like Mac OS X supports). Not a fight, just a must-have accessory.
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.
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.
Of course there is someone making a tablet for you... Apple. The iPad is in no way the BMW in this instance, it's a nice fully loaded Honda Accord (or Civi, whatever floats your boat). Hell there are cellphones that are quite more expensive than the entry level iPad. Five hundred bucks for a great tablet (and an awesome user experience) is honestly quite cheap in the grand scheme of things.
Define 'beat'. Right now there's nothing on the market that can match both the iPad's features and experience and its price. The Nook Color is intriguing as a cheap Android tablet, but it's not at all in the same league as the iPad or Xoom.
If you're looking for a car that will just keep going, get a Jeep Wrangler.
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).
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.
The paint could blister and peel, the door seals could rot, the dashboard could crack from UV exposure, the shock absorbers could leak, the wipers could seize, the steering could become loose and noisy, etc.
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. :-)
They also have a 5-year 50,000 bumper-to-bumper warranty. I had an issue with my glovebox on my an Hyundai Elantra (same company) It was my fault (long story), but they gladly replaced at 40k miles.
I'm a huge fan. I now own a Kia soul. In the two years I've had it it's been rock solid.
A Kia is a Kia (Sportage). You get a modest car for a modest price. But in fairness, the paint, interior, controls were in great shape on the day it died after 10 years. No complaints.
Like I said, I was merely responding to the parent comment's assertion that you couldn't have a car that was mostly trash at 50-100k miles if it has a 100k powertrain warranty.
>I had a Kia that did the job for 230,000 miles. If all you want is transportation, it does the job.
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.
The South Korean car industry has improved by leaps and bounds over the past fifteen years. The difference between a Kia or Hyundai in '96 and today is massive. It's really worth taking another look at Kia's products, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
I rooted the Nook Color and it is terrific. Great use as a ebook reader and general tablet. It seems to strike a very good balance between a pure ebook reader like the kindle and the iPad. We have kindle, nook color and the iPad at home. The iPad is useless for holding and reading more than 20 mins. My wife can't pick it up for more than 5 mins. The Nook Color is lighter than the iPad but more functional (browser, apps, zoom in/out) than the kindle. Downsides are -- rooted it is still android 2.1. Moving to 2.2 or 2.3 is not easy (I believe moving to 2.2 required turning off the heat sensor!!). Honeycomb kinda runs in a debug mode (ie., very slow). If the community can create a painless way to move this to android 2.3 it will be a great win.
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).
Same here. I love my Nook Color. I bought it specifically to root it. I own a Kindle which I would much rather read long-form fiction on. The Kindle is terrible for reading academic pdfs and programming books. That is at least 50% of my use for the Nook, the other 50% being general android apps and web browsing. I haven't even opened a book on it yet.
How smooth is the Nook Color for navigating around an academic PDF? When I've played with one inside the store, it seemed a little jerky when zooming on the Nook Color manual PDF.
I think that the stock Nook Color app is not that great for reading pdfs. I use the Adobe one and I've tried one other pdf viewer (that I can't recall the name of now), and they were markedly better.
I see this "the iPad is too heavy to comfortably read" comment a lot. I have had an iPad v1 for all of 5 days, but in that time I have read more "long-form" material than the previous five months.
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.
It may depend on the amount of RSI damage your hands have taken. I've played with iPads at the Apple Store, and I can't hold it comfortably for more than a few minutes.
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.
And if you owned a Kindle you'd know exactly what people mean.
The iPad is heavy for one handed use, not to mention bulky. It does excel at PDF use though. To each his own. I prefer the Kindle for anything that is just words. Anything else is a toss up between iPad and nOok.
While it's a great deal for the end user, Barnes and Noble may be selling them at a loss (or at least a very small profit) with the expectation of making up the difference with book sales. They probably don't stand to benefit from having the cheapest android tablet, with users who weren't specifically looking for an e-reader.
They almost certainly aren't selling it below cost. Rooting them has been common for months, and even if they can't stop it completely they could easily put up speedbumps like not unconditionally booting off the SD card. I'd expect they make a small profit even if you root it and never buy any books from them, and they're hoping that most rooters will. Which may be a good bet; I got mine a week ago and will be picking up some books shortly for an upcoming trip.
I have a Kindle and have considered a Nook because they're color, and travel guides absolutely suck and are pretty much worthless in low-res black and white (maps, for example, on a Kindle are unreadable and too tiny to even give vaguely useful details). Since I have an ebook reader because I travel full-time and can't keep more than a couple of physical books on hand at any given time, it's sort of annoying that I have to buy physical travel guides, and then give them away when I meet someone heading to where I've just visited.
I wonder how good the Frommer's and Lonely Planet guides are on Nook...
If they're selling the hardware at a loss, they're in even bigger trouble (as a company) than I thought. With rumors of the Kindle trending towards a price of "free", how can B&N possibly compete long-term? That's not a battle they can win, not against Amazon's scale and distribution network.
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.
Amazon's going on the same model though. I agree that B&N is crashing fast, but "sell at a loss, make up on books" is essentially the entire idea behind ebook readers. It is why the main competitors are coming from book stores, not traditional hardware makers.
It will probably turn out well for Amazon, but it's failed strategy for B&N to pursue. In those loss leader situations it's usually the biggest guy that survives, which doesn't bode well for B&N. Amazon is plenty diversified to outlast B&N and then capitalize on the empty competitive landscape once they've knocked the other booksellers out.
And yet Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo all manage to do it regularly with games. I agree Amazon is set to dominate this market, but if B&N can figure out a way to leverage its brick and mortar stores in this fight, they could still be a solid competitor. For example, if they really embraced this and allowed people to browse around the store for a book, take it to the counter and buy the ebook and have the clerk put it on your Nook, they could continue to capture the crowd that wants to browse as well as expand the market to people who are more technology-phobic.
Actually, Nintendo dropped that strategy with the most recent console generation (Wii) and look to be doing the same thing with the 3DS (their new portable). Wii hardware was sold at a profit from day 1. They were the underdog compared to Sony and Microsoft, who can subsidize their console businesses with money from their more profitable core businesses.
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.
Sony does less of it that used to be advertised. They control most of their own fabrication, so while the PS2 and PS3 weren't profitable from day 1, they got there very quickly.
If they're selling the hardware at loss, they may turn profit once sales of hardware increase. Economies of scale == cheaper components, cheaper labor, cheaper distribution. Initial development costs spread over more units. At some point network effect and referrals kick in.
I should have phrased it differently as I have no familiarity with their margins. I just meant that I'm sure they priced it with future book sale revenue in mind.
I would have to think that if B&N is not selling the Nook for a loss, they're selling it for no profit. At $250 it's a lot more expensive than the $139 Kindle. (It's color, but how much of an advantage is that in a reader that will mostly be used for the equivalent of paperbacks?)
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.
Move Over Apple, My Dell Cost only $400 and I don't understand the fact that you're aiming for an upmarket quality play like usual! Computers are computers, tablets are tablets, right? Just like cars, right?
I think Apple sees the iPad as their netbook. It fills a similar role for the user - cafe, bed, train, casual use - and note how they don't have a notebook with a screen smaller than 11". Compared to a netbook, the iPad is upmarket in style, branding and price.
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 of the Macbook air as the competitor to most netbooks only in form factor/physical keyboard functionality but definitely not in price. Most users are using the iPads casually but the adoption in corporate IT environments and in other "professional" settings is compelling (FAA just approved the use of iPads for pilots to replace paper charts/logs) and many hospitals are using iPads.
You could view the MacBook Pro in about the same way - it is competition to notebooks in every way except for price. They cost twice as much as non-Apple notebooks with comparable specs.
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.
There's another thread on here comparing the MBP to the HP Envy and I make the argument that you can't factor out the intangibles when comparing specs between MBPs and PC laptop - OS is highly personal, design/status symbol is of value.
While the article is being (rightfully) ridiculed for the over the top headline, there is some truth in there. The iPad and it's competitors are still fairly expensive for an "impulse buy", and I don't think it's clear to a lot of people how tablets are useful. They seem cool, but it's hard to justify spending that much for something you aren't even sure if you're going to use, at least with what I make.
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.
What would be interesting if for Barnes and Nobel to allow the continued use of the Nook for this type of stuff, and then later do a detailed report on how big an impact it had on their bottom line. The speculation (by hackers) has always been if you are selling product as a loss leader and people are hacking it, it's a better strategy than if you try to shut them out. Someone should test it!
I believe they have announced that they will allow it, in the sense that they won't impose any measures to prevent rooting. Given that, I would expect them to check in a year or so to see whether they need to change their mind.
It is the best tablet deal around. Running Honeycomb on it still lacks support for the hardware decoder, but it will come in time--older android versions support it fine.
It's slow. Animations and web page scrolling are ~15fps and controls in many apps take ~200ms to respond. Also, there's a problem with the 3g network component that prevents the nook from sleeping unless it's in airplane mode.
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.
It's fast; I'm running the 1.1ghz overclock, but it was decent even without it. The processor was probably underclocked for battery life, not because it was 'binned' as flaky at the normal clock.
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.
Nook could, possibly, become a business model on its own. It has merit as a stand-alone product and general audience will be willing to shell out $250 for a tablet. If trend catches on, economy of scale will kick in and B&N may start making decent profit on it.
On the other hand, you can't exactly market a barcode scanner to the general audience...
>Be aware that you perform this software hack entirely at your own risk. Barnes & Noble says it invalidates your warranty. The process ran smoothly for me, but when I read the Internet chat rooms, I found at least a few people had had problems. If it goes wrong, you're on your own.
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.
I've had an iPad1, now have a rooted Nook Color, and on Friday (or Saturday) will be getting an iPad2.
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.
>The Nook Color is great in all ways except one: video.
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.
Considering the "circumvention" is inserting an SD card and turning it on, I doubt that would trigger the DMCA. The only question is whether the image that you burn to the card contains copyrighted B&N software, which I don't believe it does; it just installs additional software that grants root access.
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.
Seems silly to write, "Move Over Apple, My Tablet Cost $200" and then spend a couple of paragraphs writing about what it is lacking compared to an iPad, Xoom, etc. Doesn't seem "Move Over Apple"-worthy.
"Why should I have to invalidate the warranty in order to make their product more attractive?"
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 $200. And with a small hack I can even read books from Amazon on this device! I just print them out and glue them between the Moleskine's pages.
Of course, there's always cheaper hardware with less functions - but why make this a wsj article?
I had a Kia that did the job for 230,000 miles. If all you want is transportation, it does the job.
If you want all the nice things that come with a BMW, however, well, you get what you pay for.
From the article:
"Of course, it's hardly the same as an iPad or a Xoom or a Galaxy. It doesn't have any cameras. It has a slower processor. It's not for power users. The video support is pretty limited. A few Android programs still won't run on it. And dedicated gamers will doubtless find it frustrating."
It's an attention grabbing headline which is the purpose of a headline. But the author is not truly comparing Apples and Oranges. He simply wanted to highjack eyeballs.
Between requiring developers to pay to write apps (have to enter their personal or enterprise program) and now charging for the IDE, Apple is almost taking a hostile stance against developers, whereas Google is embracing them.
The comma makes more sense if you retain the exclamation point of the original. An addressed person's name (here "Apple") is always grammatically parenthetical, and hence preceded by the comma. The erroneous part is the missing terminal punctuation after the introductory command.
mmm, move over mister Brett Arends, if you found a 200$ for your soul please shut up and and enjoy your tablet, the 15 million iPad users really dont give a #*%& about your article ;)
Btw. I dont have an iPad, neither do I need one :D
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.