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bgalbrecht · 10-23-2010, 11:59 AM

The only difference between a stock Nook and a rooted Nook is that the rooted Nook has some programs installed on it that the stock Nook does not. If you buy books from B&N, they download automatically to your rooted Nook just as they would on the stock Nook. Side-loading just means you installed your books onto your Nook from your PC by one of several means. You can have them get installed from Adobe Digital Editions (for example, library books, or most books purchased at other ebookstores). Your Nook looks like one or two external drives on your PC, and you can copy files directly there with a file browser on your PC. You can use a ebook library program like Calibre on your PC, and it can download them to your Nook.

I think the most compelling reason for rooting the Nook is if you have lots of side-loaded content on your Nook, because the stock Nook only allows you to select these books by paging through the "My Documents" one page at a time, with books sorted by author or title. That's not so bad if you only buy books from B&N (as they so obviously want you to do), but if you have hundreds (or thousands, like me) of ebooks from elsewhere, then you are looking at clicking through potentially hundreds of pages to find the book you want. The rooted Nook has a very nice replacement library application which allows you to search all books, not just B&N books by author, by title, by keywords in the description, and by cover. There's also a file browser, an improved music player, and several other goodies.

The original Nooks, the ones which are currently running firmware version 1.4.0, are pretty easy to root. You need an external microSDHC card, and you need to copy a couple of files to your Nook and follow some simple directions. The newer Nooks, with firmware versions of 1.4.1 and above, apparently can be rooted by someone with a strong computer technical skills, but I think it's beyond most people with casual computer skills.

10-23-2010, 11:59 AM	#8
bgalbrecht Wizard Posts: 1,806 Karma: 13399999 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: US Device: Nook Simple Touch, Kobo Glo HD, Kobo Clara HD, Kindle 4	The only difference between a stock Nook and a rooted Nook is that the rooted Nook has some programs installed on it that the stock Nook does not. If you buy books from B&N, they download automatically to your rooted Nook just as they would on the stock Nook. Side-loading just means you installed your books onto your Nook from your PC by one of several means. You can have them get installed from Adobe Digital Editions (for example, library books, or most books purchased at other ebookstores). Your Nook looks like one or two external drives on your PC, and you can copy files directly there with a file browser on your PC. You can use a ebook library program like Calibre on your PC, and it can download them to your Nook. I think the most compelling reason for rooting the Nook is if you have lots of side-loaded content on your Nook, because the stock Nook only allows you to select these books by paging through the "My Documents" one page at a time, with books sorted by author or title. That's not so bad if you only buy books from B&N (as they so obviously want you to do), but if you have hundreds (or thousands, like me) of ebooks from elsewhere, then you are looking at clicking through potentially hundreds of pages to find the book you want. The rooted Nook has a very nice replacement library application which allows you to search all books, not just B&N books by author, by title, by keywords in the description, and by cover. There's also a file browser, an improved music player, and several other goodies. The original Nooks, the ones which are currently running firmware version 1.4.0, are pretty easy to root. You need an external microSDHC card, and you need to copy a couple of files to your Nook and follow some simple directions. The newer Nooks, with firmware versions of 1.4.1 and above, apparently can be rooted by someone with a strong computer technical skills, but I think it's beyond most people with casual computer skills. Last edited by bgalbrecht; 10-23-2010 at 12:04 PM.