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should i get a nook color?

crisiscorex

Newbie
Apr 22, 2011
40
3
ive been looking in to the nook color and i find it very interesting, if my sources are correct, i hear it has the same processor as the samsung galaxy tab (a8 processor). i wanna buy an tablet that can run android emulators decent specially fpse, but i was wondering if it would be a good choice in the long run i mostly use android for emulators and games (spider man total mayhem, eternal legacy, etc...)

should i?
 
Not really, it's awesome for watching movies or email/web but it's not that great when it comes to 3D games(I have one). If gaming is what you want, and you feel compelled to do it on a tablet, then get a nicer one.


are you sure? cause i saw some youtube videos of the nook running almost every hd game decently with little to no lag at all and im not sure if i should go ahead and spend an extra 250 - 300 dollars but your probably right i should get one thats better
 
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Your sources are not correct.

The Nook color has the Ti OMAP 3630 SoC, not the Hummingbird found in Samsung GalaxyS phones. The Ti OMAP is the same that is found in phones like the Droid X.

They are all ARM A8 based processors. The OMAP CPU is just slightly faster than the Hummingbird in CPU operations. Memory architectures and capacities are also similar. The real difference is the graphics between the two processors. The OMAP uses a PowerVR 530 GPU, while the Hummingbird uses the PowerVR 540. The 540 is something on the order of 8X faster on paper.

But that performance comes at the cost of power consumption. Running games and movies will die a lot quicker with the Hummingbird.

Personally, I think the graphics on the NC are good enough for most operations. There aren't that many 3D games available, and I think it can handle some of them OK, but will reach it's limit for more advanced games. If you really want to do 3D gaming on a tablet, you are going to have to bite the bullet and get a Xoom. It's graphics are far superior.
 
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Your sources are not correct.

The Nook color has the Ti OMAP 3630 SoC, not the Hummingbird found in Samsung GalaxyS phones. The Ti OMAP is the same that is found in phones like the Droid X.

They are all ARM A8 based processors. The OMAP CPU is just slightly faster than the Hummingbird in CPU operations. Memory architectures and capacities are also similar. The real difference is the graphics between the two processors. The OMAP uses a PowerVR 530 GPU, while the Hummingbird uses the PowerVR 540. The 540 is something on the order of 8X faster on paper.

But that performance comes at the cost of power consumption. Running games and movies will die a lot quicker with the Hummingbird.

Personally, I think the graphics on the NC are good enough for most operations. There aren't that many 3D games available, and I think it can handle some of them OK, but will reach it's limit for more advanced games. If you really want to do 3D gaming on a tablet, you are going to have to bite the bullet and get a Xoom. It's graphics are far superior.

i know they arent the same but i ment they are both a8 processors just not exactly the same =)

i think im going to go with the nook seeing as im really tight on money and the extra 300$ dont seem to be worth the small performance boost. i mostly just play emulators fpse im sure runs really well on an 800mhz processor and with yongzh's new n64 update coming with HUGE improvements il be satisfied for a long while =)

thank you all very much for your pointers though and maybe in the future il invest in a xoom cause the xoom is AWESOME!
 
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i know they arent the same but i ment they are both a8 processors just not exactly the same =)

i think im going to go with the nook seeing as im really tight on money and the extra 300$ dont seem to be worth the small performance boost. i mostly just play emulators fpse im sure runs really well on an 800mhz processor and with yongzh's new n64 update coming with HUGE improvements il be satisfied for a long while =)

thank you all very much for your pointers though and maybe in the future il invest in a xoom cause the xoom is AWESOME!
You should be fine.

BTW, ditch the stock firmware and put on one of the latest ROMS. Then overclock it to 1.1GHz or better. :D
 
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My nook really bogs down trying to do complex games. If I had bought it for that, I'd be pissed. Just saying...

True but most emulators dont need amazing processors unless im running a ds emulator or something. Besides it runs them sort of decent from what i see

You should be fine.

BTW, ditch the stock firmware and put on one of the latest ROMS. Then overclock it to 1.1GHz or better. :D

first thing im going to do is install cm7 on flash and HONEYCOMB on the sd card. Ima stay away from overclocking for a long time it had really bad side effects on my HD2 it constanly overheats even when im just watching a movie (even then overheating was always an issue on older snapdragon processors). if i do overclock it, it will probably just be to a max of 900mhz.
 
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Look, I had a Xoom. I sold it because I thought Honeycomb had issues and it just got heavy after a while. It was built great, solid as a rock. Then I bought an Asus Eee Pad Transformer. Honeycomb still has issues and my Eee Tab has build quality problems. I've arranged to have it sent back. Bottom line: wait. Honeycomb truly needs more work before it can become a decent OS. It has so much potential but just not a lot of substance. At least, yet. What I would do is wait until Amazon releases their rumored tablets. Integration with Amazon App Store, Music Store etc, can make them the game-changer that is needed. And I think by then, issues with Honeycomb will be ironed out. Then it will be pretty spectacular.

That said, I'm back to using my Nook Color running the latest build of CM7. It performs fantastic. It's overclocked to 1.1 and runs cool. No issues there at all. It's not going to run the high-end games but I wouldn't expect it to, remember, it was initially designed to be a reader, but thanks to the Dev community, we have builds of Honeycomb (semi-stable) and Gingerbread (super stable, no issues) that we can flash. Plus, the funny thing is that the screen on my Nook Color is IMMENSELY better than the one my Xoom had. Great viewing angles and great pixel density. The Transformer had great viewing angles as well, but I have a gap around the screen and light bleed.

Get the Nook Color, install CM7, overclock it to 1.1 and it'll suit you fine until the tablet field becomes a little more saturated.
 
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Look, I had a Xoom. I sold it because I thought Honeycomb had issues and it just got heavy after a while. It was built great, solid as a rock. Then I bought an Asus Eee Pad Transformer. Honeycomb still has issues and my Eee Tab has build quality problems. I've arranged to have it sent back. Bottom line: wait. Honeycomb truly needs more work before it can become a decent OS. It has so much potential but just not a lot of substance. At least, yet. What I would do is wait until Amazon releases their rumored tablets. Integration with Amazon App Store, Music Store etc, can make them the game-changer that is needed. And I think by then, issues with Honeycomb will be ironed out. Then it will be pretty spectacular.

That said, I'm back to using my Nook Color running the latest build of CM7. It performs fantastic. It's overclocked to 1.1 and runs cool. No issues there at all. It's not going to run the high-end games but I wouldn't expect it to, remember, it was initially designed to be a reader, but thanks to the Dev community, we have builds of Honeycomb (semi-stable) and Gingerbread (super stable, no issues) that we can flash. Plus, the funny thing is that the screen on my Nook Color is IMMENSELY better than the one my Xoom had. Great viewing angles and great pixel density. The Transformer had great viewing angles as well, but I have a gap around the screen and light bleed.

Get the Nook Color, install CM7, overclock it to 1.1 and it'll suit you fine until the tablet field becomes a little more saturated.

thank you for all of this info it is really helpful to have the opinion of someone who has purchased all three =)

but isnt overclocking really bad in the long run?
 
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thank you for all of this info it is really helpful to have the opinion of someone who has purchased all three =)

but isnt overclocking really bad in the long run?


Yes. OCing a chip WILL decrease the life of it. Every time, every device. That being said, it's debatable how much that matters. For most items, the chip will outlast most of the rest of the components even with OCing. Chips just rarely die. You will likely have thrown your Nook away long before that happens. OCing also causes a device to run hotter than it should. Again a slight OC like we are talking about, it probably won't even matter. But if you are leaving it running in your hot car(why on earth you would do that I don't know) then possible it could cause problems. Otherwise OCing it just a little "should" be fine.
 
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Yes. OCing a chip WILL decrease the life of it. Every time, every device. That being said, it's debatable how much that matters. For most items, the chip will outlast most of the rest of the components even with OCing. Chips just rarely die. You will likely have thrown your Nook away long before that happens. OCing also causes a device to run hotter than it should. Again a slight OC like we are talking about, it probably won't even matter. But if you are leaving it running in your hot car(why on earth you would do that I don't know) then possible it could cause problems. Otherwise OCing it just a little "should" be fine.

You are right. I have it set to 300mhz when the device is sleeping/resting. The great thing is that you can set it to what you want. Meaning, if you set it to 975mhz, you likely aren't doing any damage to the chip. Chips are also much more robust than they used to be, especially the TI OMAP. More than likely, I'll have to replace the battery first. There are some people that are running it at 1300mhz... I think that can truly impact it, even thought they are claiming that the device doesn't get hot. I just have a hard time believing that. Heat is efficiency's enemy.

In any case, the Amazon tablets will have arrived by the holidays and there will be other Android tablets that will be better priced. Also, most importantly for me, Honeycomb will be humming along by then.
 
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You are right. I have it set to 300mhz when the device is sleeping/resting. The great thing is that you can set it to what you want. Meaning, if you set it to 975mhz, you likely aren't doing any damage to the chip. Chips are also much more robust than they used to be, especially the TI OMAP. More than likely, I'll have to replace the battery first. There are some people that are running it at 1300mhz... I think that can truly impact it, even thought they are claiming that the device doesn't get hot. I just have a hard time believing that. Heat is efficiency's enemy.

In any case, the Amazon tablets will have arrived by the holidays and there will be other Android tablets that will be better priced. Also, most importantly for me, Honeycomb will be humming along by then.

so if i overclock it to 900 mhz every day is that going to damage it alot?
 
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900mhz is still underclocked compared to the OMAP in the Droid X which is the same processor if I'm not mistaken.

i just want to avoid the same problem i have with my hd2 for being ignorant every time i watch a video or play a game it tends to get really really hot, it doesnt shut down just gets really hot
i dont want to have a nook that gets really hot when i try to watch a simple video
so 900 mhz is in the safe zone thats good to know =) that will give my gaming time a small boost
 
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My NC is OC'd to 1200. I used to do 1300, but it would get warm (not hot) when playing games so I backed it off.

After several hours of use, I checked cpu spy and it said most of the time was spent at 300 with about 10% use at 1200. 800 was used the least. Unless you set the governor to "performance", you won't drastically reduce the life of your cpu.
 
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Yes. OCing a chip WILL decrease the life of it. Every time, every device. That being said, it's debatable how much that matters. For most items, the chip will outlast most of the rest of the components even with OCing. Chips just rarely die. You will likely have thrown your Nook away long before that happens. OCing also causes a device to run hotter than it should. Again a slight OC like we are talking about, it probably won't even matter. But if you are leaving it running in your hot car(why on earth you would do that I don't know) then possible it could cause problems. Otherwise OCing it just a little "should" be fine.
Not entirely true, at least in the context that you describe it.

Heat is the enemy of components. The hotter you run a component, the more you have to derate it's longevity. I doubt anyone would debate this, but if they did, that's the basis for Telecordia (Bellcore) TR-322 reliability analysis.

Clock speed by itself has no basis on the longevity of a component. NEVER. It does happen that when overclocking, one does on average tend to increase component heat, which in turn reduces the components average life. But overclocking does not always raise temperatures. Some chips can run at lower than stock voltages, and when overclocked/undervolted, can run lower TDP than stock clocked processors, actually increasing longevity.

For the most part, you were correct, but just stated it incorrectly.

In the end though, the reliability derating is insignifigant in the average life of a processor. The calculated MTBF of the OMAP 3630 is 1.98x10^8 hours, or that translates into an average life of over 22,500 years. :eek:

22,500 years.

Does anyone really care if they reduced it to 1000 years? 100 years?
The problem is certainly more complicated that this brief post, but as long as you don't exceed the thermal design of the chip itself, then you're not hurting it's useable reliability.
 
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+1

If you're OC'ing a phone that lets you set your own vsels (voltages), it's possible to cause damage. The kernels that are available to the NC use conservative settings.


ok just to confirm everything, over clocking it to 900MHz and set it to interactive it will not heat up after a some gameplay or videos? im familiar with everything except when it comes to overclocking im a complete noob i dont know what a processors overclocking "cap" is, its max safest oc speed.
 
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Even if you run it at 800mhz solid for an hour, I suspect you can get it warm. Max stable is 1300 for most NC's. 1400 was somewhat stable, but was never released to the public. I believe that 1300 is at an elevated voltage, but the lower speeds are not. (At least that's what I recall.) You'd have to read thru 150 pages to find more info on that. :D

I have not heard of anyone with issues from OC'ing, other than instability, which you'll find on any OC'd device above a certain speed. OC'ing on the NC doesn't start until it's fully loaded, which also is nice if it's set too high.

Newer kernels based on on 2.6.32 builds are faster than the stock 2.6.29 builds and show quite a bit of potential and battery savings, but these are just stable enough to enter the nightly builds (used for testing). Battery life is close to stock Nook, with potential to be better. Right now custom roms do not sleep properly so battery life is worse if you don't shut it down when not being used.

Every cpu is different, some good and some not so and the cpu is self-adapting so my NC might decide it needs a little higher voltage than yours and run warmer.

Also, bear in mind the newer NC's are partitioned differently so you might want to fix that before you do much. More on that here: Major (and potentially ugly) Change to the NOOKcol... - Barnes & Noble Book Clubs
 
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im going to purchase mine from craigslist to be extra sure i dont get one of the new ones =) and when i do im going to game on it im sure it will be a few hours before it starts warming up.

No real problem with the new ones and their partitioning scheme. XDA forums has a thread of reverting to the old partitions. The latest nightly CM7 roms support the new partition scheme also.

Not sure why one would pick one partition scheme over another. I went with repartitioning mine just so I could learn more about what is going on. All in all it took me about 1.5 hours tonight to root, repartition, install CM7, overclocking kernel, etc. Seems like a fun little device.
 
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