The B&N NOOK Tablet is a $249 Android tablet with a 7 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel IPS display, a 1 GHz TI OMAP4 dual core processor, 16GB of storage, and a microSD card slot. After ASUS its worth its price.
B&N didn’t launched their NOOK as an Android tablet per se. Instead it was a NOOK tablet tied to the NOOK ebook and app store. While some of the people came to know that they can add third party apps from other sources, which later on was confirmed as a bug, not a feature.
In the mean time, hackers were on their way to find out some way to run custom code to make it fit for general use. People have been dual booting the NOOK color, a device launched in 2010, but the same wasn’t so with the NOOK tablet due to its locked bootloader, which made hackers have to put forth extra effort.
Fortunately, as of now, the developers have found out two ways to run custom code on the NOOK tablet. One relies on a modchip — which is an actual piece of hardware that needs to be connected to the tablet. But another method simply allows you to install software on a microSD card, insert it into the NOOK Tablet, and boot from the SD card instead of the primary storage which seems to be much simpler than the other, but neither of them is suggested for the general public as of yet.
Recently, Developer Brandon Bennet (or Nemith) found out a way to run CynogenMod 9 on the NOOK tablet, like one on HP Touchpad. Due to the secure bootloader, hackers faced great difficulty finding out a way to run stock Android. Now they are working to run custom ROMs from external memory rather than device’s primary storage. This would help users to run custom ROMs without erasing the company’s official firmware.
Neimith is all set for the public release of the tools to run CynogenMod 9 but is still trying to improve the software.
The public are advised to proceed with caution, as this might void your warranty if something bad happens while trying CM9 when released.
