Elbows Music Blog Community

squashed

I got a nook color. It has lousy sound quality. quick impression so far:

- I bought it because I need traveling pdf reader. So far it's a pretty responsive and useful as pdf reader. (haven't check goodies like bookmark, annotation, etc) but overall I can't complain since similarly priced tablets are all crappy. I don't plan to install software or buy B&N books..so don't know. I'll report back if I decide to root this puppy with android. (if this can run basic office app spreadsheet with enough oomphs.. then it might be very useful)

- feels solid, I wish it's a little lighter and thinner. but no biggie.

- screen's so so. a little yellowish on low power, indoor only screen. But can't complain since it's pretty cheap.

- sound quality is disappointing. I was expecting it to sound as good as average low end netbook, but it has no depth. Think old walkman tape/cheap FM radio. (probably because this uses older generation TI processor) The voice reader/external speaker is actually entertaining. I love it. If I were a kid I would love to have this for endless bedtime story.

- storage is hopelessly inadequate. (5 GB free plus Micro SD.) I have to check if it can read USB flash drive dongle (don't have adapter cable. if it can than it's more useful, since USB flashdrive is much cheaper )

- haven't really use it for internet browsing. I can only report it shows pages and can't complain. zoom in and out is not snappy, but usable.

- no lanyard, no casing. cheap skate.

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Overall, if this device had better sound quality and cost $199, I would definitely recommend it for small carry on computer. Otherwise as of now, it's a adequate / useful tablet for text computing. Wait for next generation processor if you demand acceptable sound quality.

Tim

Just out of curiosity Squashed - why is 5GB + SD "hopelessly inadequate"?

I thought all it did was read text/image books/pdfs? How big are those things?

If you also plan to use to to replace your ipod then fair enough I can see where the space goes, but from what I understand it can't handle video(?) and from what you say the sound is terrible, so why the need for space?

A 32GB SD card these days is only £30 anyway, so not a massive outlay - I was just curios what you're using the space for.

brandon

I thought about getting one of those to root & mod it.. saw some interesting hacks

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Memory size.

it accepts micro reader (8GB runs for about $20. Max 32GB/$90)

average b/w true pdf for book with 300pages is about 5-10MB. 30MB is unusually large for true pdf. For textbook scan it can go as high as 100MB. It has no file compression utility.

The problem is not a question if one can carry a few hundred files, but the need to break main hard drive organization to small pieces. I have 200GB of things that I don't even know I have, Mostly who knows what reference material. This create huge problem since e-reader has only primitive file organization. I won't remember what I have/don't have inside nook, except few favorite books. (so reference material, tiny scatters pdf, who knows what /"i plan to read it when I stranded in desert island" thingie will be mostly random files name)

managing micro SD in painful, believe me. They are so small you don't want to take it out except when necessary, and barely has space for marking/label. (they should have built dummy sd slots in the chasis for storing unused cards. That would be useful)

Video.

I don't know if it's intentionally crippled or true hardware limitation. The built in OS has no video player except barely functional .mp4/limited to nook screen resolution, while Android 2.2/2.3 hack does not have video hardware acceleration. The 3.0 is said to have video accelerator. 2.2 has a software player (useful, but still won't function as universal click and play/any codec plug in as in laptop)

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Nook however seems to have huge geek followers.

Android 2.2 is up to date. (complete with overclock utility, android store is fully functional)
Android 2.3 is up to date nightly built (Bluetooth is now turned on, but still no hardware video accelerator. promised to be imminent.)
Android 3 is ported. (w/ accelerator, but not sure what it means for playing video. The current version is far too bleeding edge to be useful anyway.)

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So, according to random internet post, Nook Color is indeed being crippled. The 2D/3D accelerator does not have software driver up to android 2.3.

Only Motorola right now has the driver (and their tablet is expensive crap.)

I am still wondering why the audio is so incredibly crappy for such modern device. (I am keeping my finger cross that sound is a crippled feature)

http://fineoils.blogspot.com/2011/02/nook-color-and-hardware-acceleration.html

It takes much more sobering up to realize that Honeycomb on NC is
technically a castrated "lite" version of itself, as all the TI OMAP
2D/3D/video hardware left idle, just draining battery juice for nothing.
This repository by Texas Instruments TI ARM DSP code brings
in plethora of code for developers for almost everything. "Almost"
means here nothing for OMAP36xx SoCs, my take on this is they are left
out of this programmer's paradise by Motorola's request.

.....
-- the "missing" IVA2/PowerVR SGX530 code is presumably specced at
decoding/rendering WMV9, RealVideo, H.264 base profile streams at 720p
30 fps level, plus hardware vector-adaptive deinterlacing and scaling
down, then up a 854x480 max frame into NC's 1024x600 screen.

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Yes. The audio is being crippled. It also has FM radio built in.

http://forum.meego.com/showthread.php?t=2150

* Audio: Ti TLV320DAC3100 Codec

3.5mm Headset Jack (TRS 3-Pole) - no mic input

Single Rear Speaker

PWM Headphone Amp

Headphone Detection

Mic Amp and ADC (Mic input not available)

Audio Formats: .3GP, .3G2, .MP4, .AMR, .MP3, .MID, .XMF, .MXMF, .RTTL, .OTA, .IMY, .WAV, .OGG, .ACC **

Audio Codecs: ACC, ACC+, AMR, MP3, MIDI, LPCM **

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Description

The
TLV320DAC3100 is a low-power, highly integrated, high-performance stereo
audio DAC with 24-bit stereo playback and digital audio processing
blocks.

The device integrates headphone drivers and speaker drivers. The mono speaker driver can drive loads down to 4

.
The TLV320DAC3100 has a suite of built-in processing blocks for digital
audio processing. The digital audio data format is programmable to work
with popular audio standard protocols (I²S,
left/right-justified) in master, slave, DSP, and TDM modes. Bass boost,
treble, or EQ can be supported by the programmable digital
signal-processing block. An on-chip PLL provides the high-speed clock
needed by the digital signal-processing block.

^Features

^{Stereo Audio DAC with 95-dB SNR}
^{Supports 8-kHz to 192-kHz Sample Rates}
^{Mono Class-D BTL Speaker Driver (2.5 W Into 4- or 1.6 W Into 8-)}
^{Two Single-Ended Inputs With Mixing and Output Level Control}
^{Stereo Headphone/Lineout and Mono Class-D Speaker Outputs Available}
^{Microphone Bias}
^{Headphone Detection}
^{25 Built-in Digital Audio Processing Blocks (PRB_P1 – PRB_P25) Providing Biquad and FIR Filters, DRC, and 3-D Structures}

http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/tlv320dac3100.html

Tim

Interesting... thanks for that.

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I still can't find any good commentary about nook color audio quality. ... nobody seems interested using nook for heavy duty media player. Youtube's video on nooks are all about gaming/rooting/hacks and tricks. Amusingly, all major game emulator has been ported, but full suite open source office app isn't here yet.

I can see what people's priorities are. heh...

Tsuru

audio quality with headphones or with it's speakers? I never expect decent audio quality on any handheld or lap device.

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headphones. (no depth, low quality FM sound. It might be crippled via OS. who knows. I'll compare it after I install new ROM. I am still looking around.)

The external speaker is similar to speakerphone, only for quite room. Tiny bedside alarm clock type of sound.

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The continuously updated auto nooter thread:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=872490

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more info

http://nookdevs.com/NookColor_Rooting

http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?s=4329054d06bc5668f5e663d0e1708ac8&f=860

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Same procedure,

http://reviewhorizon.com/2010/12/how-to-root-nook-color-review-and-gallery/

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/hiner/how-to-hack-the-250-nook-color-into-a-full-android-tablet/7630

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In case something went wrong, check here for a tutorial in how to restore your Nook Color to factory state / stock firmware.

http://theunlockr.com/2011/02/14/how-to-restore-the-nook-color-to-stock/

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http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=872490

How to Use:

Before you begin:

* To update to 1.0.1 you must do a complete wipe.

* You must update to 1.0.1 to use AutoNooter 2.12.25 Instructions Here.

1 You must already have a registered NOOKcolor

2 You must have a Gmail/Youtube linked Account. IF you used a Gmail account for B&N Registration you should use that one for this process.

3 You must either have dd (Linux) or WinImage (Windows) software.

4 You must have an external microSDCard reader or this will not work. Do NOT use the NC.

5 You must have enough intelligence to follow instructions.

Let's get started:

1 Download Auto-Nooter from here: auto-nooter-2-12-25.img.zip

2 Linux: Unzip and use dd if=auto-nooter-2-12-25.img of=/dev/sdcard

2 Windows: Unzip and use WinImage to "Restore Virtual Hard Disk Image" to your SDcard.

2 Windows Alternative: https://launchpad.net/win32-image-writer/+download

3 Unplug your NOOKcolor from computer. (If Plugged in.)

4 Insert AutoNooter SDcard into your NOOKcolor.

5 Plug the USB cable into your computer and your NOOKcolor. (This will boot up the NOOKcolor.)

6 Your NookColor will reboot when it's done.

That was the hard part, now to the simple stuff.

7 Upon boot unlock your screen.

8 At the Android Welcome Screen skip Sign In.

9 Enable Location Services when given the option.

10 Connect to Wifi and launch Youtube from "Extras".

11 Click the Menu button (The one RIGHT of the Up Arrow).

12 Select "My Channel" and Login using your Gmail Account.

13 Exit Youtube and Launch Gmail from "Extras".

14 Sync your Gmail Account and Exit. (If it fails to sync that is fine.)

15 Open up Market and Accept Terms and Service.

If you made it this far your nook should be successfully Rooted. Go Download an App to make sure.

16 Enable Non-Market Installs by running the NookColor Tools App.

17 If your Youtube fails to launch Uninstall and Reinstall Youtube from /data/app

18 Go to Settings > Device Info > SdCard > UnMount > Format

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ok. I rooted my nook color. minimal difficulty. I don't have wireless right now. so can't install app from android store.

music player, and the rest of applications.
The auto nooter above preserve all original apps. So it's exact same crappy sound (usable, but crappy nonetheless). On the bright side every build in app works as original.

I am tempting to just install 2.3 cause it has improved audio capability in the OS, (but I've heard the wifi is finicky in the current ROM.)

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CM7 for Nook Color gets Video Playback Fix and RC Status!

For those of you who have taken advantage of the fact that the Barnes and Noble Nook Color is Android powered and hackable, there is good news from the Cyanogen Mod
team that has been working on CM7 for the device. The latest nightly
build has DSP/Video playback enabled, taking care of the audio lag on
the device whilst watching video media. After installing this build on
my device, I can tell you that video works really well, with a great
framerate.

CM team members Dalingrin and Fattire worked hard on the video issue,
with the enabling of DSP as the result. Both team members worked hard
on the ROM in general as well, fixing numerous bugs from previous
builds. Give those two a big thank you in the comments for their work.
Remember, they do this for free, this is a "hobby".

The build is available now on the CyanogenMod download page,
and as you will see when you download, has a release candidate tag
attached naming it RC4. Exciting news as the team continues to move
towards a stable release for the unit.

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going to wait for a few days and instal this ROM.

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after few weeks of use.

- decide not to install CM7 until next stable release.

- Still looking for good mp3 player. (winamp for android sounds even worst than built in. I got the sense this is because of hardware fragmentation, so programmer can't be sure each phone/tablet actually support hifi hardware. hopefully CM7/2.3 cures this)

- useful as reader. But definitely more fun as toy (my 99% use so far). Serious & useful productivity apps are not there yet. (note taking, office, file transfers,) but it's minor, early versions are all there. Worst case scenario: cloud services. All important open source apps haven't been ported yet. (except FreeCiv and Doom. lol.) Come on people. quit goofing around...

- 2.2 is not OS for tablet. so issues like screen scaling, bad button design, UI cleanliness are there.

- Nook color hardware: the USB jack is going to bust first. I can feel it. It's flimsy. Touch screen can be finicky in high humidity/greasy finger/your body doesn't generate enough static. Low quality headphone jack.

- wish: SD card is a must. or at least dual microSD. bluetooth, microphone, camera, GPS, hdmi. USB host!! (basically, complete the little things as a tablet already. god, whatta cheapskate.)

- haven't try to play video yet. ( I don't have high hope. Android multimedia is still primitive. Nook is the first big hit android tablet. And it is a reader.)

- internet use? (the more complicated apps & widgets are all raw. Most are written for smartphone, no fun at all. web browsing is ok to see few pages, but laptop level of surfing is not there yet.)

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next. trying to see if this thing is useful enough to upload files for blogging.

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I have to say, touch screen does not make a nice button mashing exercise.

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a more useful mini review of nook color practical pdf capability.

- built in pdf is a version of quickoffice pdf viewer. It can't display "Image" pdf. (scanned) It starts to choke noticeably above 40MB in size, above 25MB, speeds begins to degrades. The pdf reader can display 'real" pdf, even textbook as high as 96MB. (tried several of them), display quality and size is more the limiting factor in usefulness than rendering speed.

- Vudroid, djvu reader for android. Works surprisingly well on all djvu file so far. under 10MB zip as fast as your finger can flick. >30MB starts to crawl. But even in laptop giant files crawls, so it's forgiveable.

- PV reader. for .cbr and the like.

- ezpdf supposedly can display "image/scanned"

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note: everything works nicely in epub, sub 10MB real pdf. So I tried the bigger files (encyclopedia, massive reference books, etc)

** Major fail. (Sniff. st000pid machine. waaa...)

The Norton Anthology of Poetry (scanned image)
Van Nostrand's Encyclopedia of Chemistry (size. 168MB. scanned image)
Powers of Horror An Essay on Abjection - Julia Kristeva (scanned image) I reallly want to read this on ebook. sniff)

** Stupid & Useless pet trick. (It works! hey let's bring this to next party. ...where everybody goes? come back...)

CRC handbook 85th ed (ha. try putting the dead tree version in your book bag if you can.)
CRC Standard Mathematical Tables and Formulae 30ed
Merck Index 11ed (.djvu) (lol. This is awesome. You should try this at home!!)
Lange's Handbook 16ed (size: 42MB. It is too slow for fast finger flick searching, but useable.)
A Concise Handbook of Mathematics, Physics, and Engineering Sciences

Principles of Biochemistry 5ed Lehninger (slow, pinch/zoom exercise galore)
Harrison's Manual of Medicine
Oxford Textbook of medicine 2003 (60 MB. Oxfod I think publishes the most electronic friendly manuals. Unlike those others fuckers. Somebody should burn those AAAS & ACS criminal bastards at the stake in town square.)
Elementary Differential Equations - Boyce/DiPrima 7ed (real pdf publisher I think)
Encyclopedia of the Solar System (66MB, super awesome)
Atlas of Astronomical Discoveries (96MB. It's a lousy book, but have huge beautiful images. slow, but useable)
All Tintin & Asterix comics (oldies but goodies)

** Epic win!! (win. win. win. Yay. This is awesome)

The Last Ringbearer (This is a must read if you like LOTR. very melancholic in techno russian way.)
One Hundred Years Of Solitude
Mark Twain - The Complete Works
Douglas Adams -The Hitchhiker Trilogy - 5 Books 1 Short Story

Mathematics From the Birth of Numbers (djvu)

The Oxford Companion to Philosophy
Just Education - Lyotard
The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; the Art of Controversy - Arthur Schopenhauer
Revolt of the Masses - Ortega y Gasset's

Secret History of Rock The Most Influential Bands You've Never Heard
Oxford History of Art
Grid System in Graphic Design. (Highly recommended. I am still in awe)

Glorious One pot meal
Dictionary of Food International Food and Cooking Terms from A to Z

Complete Calvin and Hobbes 1985-1995

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Overall: Gutenberg.org (.epub) is as useful as ever. Wish it can show 'image'/scanned pdf. The weirder/interesting reads are all in that form. Winners are: super expensive references, colorful cooking books, "complete-work" of historically important writer, out of publication, underground and of course bulky classics textbooks.

I think the biggest barrier is actually software.

- can't display scanned image regardless of the size. (haven't tried ezPDF)
- UI/settings/image resize are purposely made stupid. wrong position, instead of works like the ebook app)
- display size. (for full size texbook, it becomes pinch/zoom/panning exercise. Highly distracting specially combined with slow rendering.)

- rendering speed can use little help.
- storage size is pathetic. but I figure, a real tablet will come soon, rendering the need for dedicated ebook moot.

Will report back after I install new version with overclock kernel.

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Netflix.

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Audio player so far. I tried TPOD, Better Music Player, winamp. All have noticable different equalizer one from another, so I figure this is not hardware.

Better Music player - it's even and not as distorted as the other. Not by much. It has widget, but the UI is too clever by half. this one is the least annoying.

Winamp - I don't know why winamp for android doesn't sound the same as desktop. Bass is missing, overtones are all gone, very obvious in soft piano pieces. But winamp is convenient and the UI is well implemented. I hope they will fix the sound in the next major version.

TPOD - the last one I tried. sounds slightly better than winamp, but the UI buttons gets old very quickly, too clever by half. It also doesn''t have widget.

[UPDATE] PowerAmp - This one sounds better than other players, but a pay app. It comes with working equalizer that adjust the entire master sound setting. Including the main volume. (You can run the trial version once, crank up the volume and set preferred equalizer, before uninstalling. This set up will affect globally, including other player. the set up will stay unless you can change it again player with equalizer) I set up mine with small mid range dip and maximum loudness. I give overall music quality 8/10, more than enough to listen to nearly all my files. Fullness of sound however still isn't maching laptop.

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I can't instal google music player. so, too bad.

Overall, it's not very satisfying, knowing the hardware can do more, but the software is all barely acceptable.

------------

Video plays surprisingly well tho' I am very happy. It does nearly all 640 by 3xx divx rip flawlessly.

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There is also a great thread collecting some minimalist/typography clock widgets. now, if I can find a way to cure those ugly icons all over my screen....

http://www.droidxforums.com/forum/droid-x-theme-stickies/13164-minimalists-resource-thread.html

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How to play HULU. (some people like that site.)

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Games and stuff on Nook.

In general, most apps are still in "quick arcade" type. Rehash of classics. With less than a handful design house churning out game with big graphic, playability depth, and originality. But there are more than enough fun games. if you look for deep original games, it's not there yet.

I am not a big game player, so take this only as quick overview. (I like RTS the most and sim second. I don't have patient for RPG and FPS is too bloody and twitchy for my nerve. Not big with arcade, or card, sport, board, puzzle.)

Fav. game so far, IMHO worth checking

- Hot Spring story. Building sim in 80's 16 bit color/pokemon GBA style. You play a role a manager of a hot spring spa. Addictive and amusing. Adorably cute. Paradise Island is another fun sim game. A clone of Tropico. (they should port tropico, sim tower, and sim city)

- Tiger Arcade (MAME) This has no sound, but emulate several good Neo Geo games. A super expensive action packed console nobody could afford from way back. I highly recommend Viewpoint. I couldn't play other ROMs yet. (other fun/plays perfectly are GBA,( cheap pop corn fun) NES, SNES.(Good for side scrolling game). PSX emu is just not playable due to extremely complex controller and the emu is still raw. stutter a lot in few games that run)

supported ROM list here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=905686

- Crystal defender, Tower Raiders 2. Robo Defense. Hex Defense. (There must be a billion variation for this tower defense game.) You play one, you play them all. But these four have nicer graphic or better game balance. I like this for my brain dead/zone out moment. Play well with finger control.

- FreeCiv. A clone fo classic Civilization game. fairly well implemented. It's Open source. A little sedate with no soundFX.
http://forum.freeciv.org/viewtopic.php?t=6347

- OpenTTY. Open source Transport Tycoon. If you like sim. It's amazing that somebody ports TTY and actually work. Tweak the resolution set up to get rid of distortion.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=844995

- GoDroid. Open source Go. very smooth, but only small board, not full size regulation board, seems like a student research project or so.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/godroid/

- Age of Conquest. Turn based Risk. Best seller. It's good 20 minutes play. Mechanical afterward. Could use little more depth. It has nice graphic)

- Zenonia 2, Illusia. 2. RPG. Nice graphic.

- Calk ball. (arcade, prevent ball from off screen. imaginative use of swipe.) Fruit Ninja. (same) Angry bird. (another finger game)

- Neth@ck. Classic ASCII RPG. (can't adjust font size, looks tiny. keyboard control is also a problem since you need to flip between number/alpha) but... It's nethack
http://code.google.com/p/nethack-android/

- Pew pew 2. Tank Hero. (arcade . Clone of SpaceWar)

- Return Zero (I like the graphic. space ship driving game.)

- Stratagus. (starcraft port! No sound, a pain in the ass control. But it's starcraft!! and it's working perfectly.) Also warcraft II. High on chuckle value, useless for serious battle. Early beta-work in progress. You need to extract graphic from original disc files.
http://www.drodin.com/stratagus

- anDOSbox. DOS emulator. It runs fairly well. albeit tiny screen. (Romance of three kingdom IV)

- quake 1,2,3. Doom. Classic FPS. But hard to control precisely using touch screen. It's a keyboard game.

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list of top games

https://market.android.com/apps/GAME
http://androidapptracker.com/Ranks/GAME/Paid/1

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Get ready for 3.1 on Nook boys and girls. Any moment now.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1093516

Tim

The new Nook looks pretty damn good I have to say, and at a decent price-point

squashed

It's slick and have long battery. But it doesn't do anything except be a good e-reader. It doesn't even have earphone plug. gaaawww.... what should I do with that gadget? actually read book? ... I want my gaaaameees and mooooviieeees....

But I wouldn't be surprised if somebody hack that gadget and turn it into full web browser and put office app. It uses android and has similar CPU as nook color.

One thing that annoys me about ebook screen, it's not very white. That dirty grayish tint doesn't feel natural. Definitely not "pearly white". More smudgy silvery coat.

B&N also gives up on the idea of "3G wireless". Nobody cares. (I mean, after you download 500 books via wifi, why exactly do you need a 3G wireless for? To browse the web or watch "read more books advertisement"? It doesn't make any sense. They should put all effort making a $80 pure reader device instead. At that price point, it'll be the same as high end black and white print material. It will start competing with book, instead of gadget.