To quickly answer why I think Android is a less than stellar OS--trying to be diplomatic--I simply refer anyone interested to the ongoing threads in the NC dev section. It seems it is not difficult to root, as Coldsun points out, though certainly not as easy as he makes it sound, but it is riddled with caveats once you do. And once you overcome all those caveats you still only have a cellular phone OS and apps mostly designed for uber-small cellular phone screens and limited support for ports, et cetera. Android simply isn't mature enough for me, was never designed for computers and tablets even though they are modifying it slowly to that end, and has been purposely hamstrung by Google to require either a cellular phone ID or kluge a work around.

If you read the dev section, it is quite painfully obvious that it requires near constant maintenance to get and keep a rooted NC running. What a joke. And who would buy a PC or Mac that didn't have ports and buttons. Not many--certainly not me. The NC has an adequate (though barely) ePub reader and PDF and Office docs viewers that save me the hassle of constantly updating a rooted NC. It works sufficiently well for me with the B&N stock GUI and apps. I simply see no need to root as that would not improve greatly, if at all, on my READING experience.

B&N repeatedly states the NC is a READER and not a tablet, and to treat it as an inexpensive tablet is a waste of my time. People like Coldsun enjoy tinkering. He truly liked the Pandigital picture frame that was pawned off as a reader. That is his perogative and I'm glad he enjoys such endeavors. I don't and I don't think Android is worth all the fuss, especially on a non-tablet READER with one button and ZERO input/output ports that can allow external device connection without rewriting of the firmware.

Bottomline is this. Android will have little to no appeal to me until such time that true tablets are released that support non-cellular types of apps, and until you can buy said tablets at a decent cost that IS NOT frigging tied to a darn cellular phone contract!!!!! Until such time socalled Android tablets are little more than huge cellular phones much like the iPad is little more than a huge iPhone. Yukk!!!!!!!!!