Barnes & Noble’s NOOKcolor has been a treat for the hacking community with the quick Froyo update and Android Marketplace that was released. Both developments did come with some dire warnings for the device and its users.
Rooting the eReader and installing Froyo necessitates the disabling of the battery monitoring process which is also responsible for monitoring the temperature of the device and shutting it down if it overheats. However, some reprieve has been provided with the update from a B&N developer that there is a secondary temperature controller on the device. The instructions to install Android Marketplace comes with the warning that there is a good chance of the process failing due to its complexity.
NOOKcolor users don’t really need to go down that road because Barnes & Noble have just given out information that the device will get the Android 2.2 update in January 2011. Better to wait for this reliable update rather than risk losing the functionality of this $249 eReader. There is no possibility of the Android Market making it to the eReader as Barnes and Noble plans to come up with its own set of applications in 2011.
