FrankenNook gets a facelift, suffers from identity crisis

ScreenShotI’ve been using my rooted Nook Color, a.k.a. FrankenNook, for a couple of months now. Turns out that it makes a great Android tablet. There are a couple of things missing from my little lab experiment, the most glaring of which is a camera, but overall it’s given me a nice travel companion with great functionality and solid battery life.  

The most common uses for the device to date have been:

  1. Games – hands down the activity that I use the tablet for most. Favorite games include Drag Racing, Pinball Ride and Peggle
  2. Reading – Pulse, Google Reader, etc.
  3. Interacting with social media – Google+, Twitter, Facebook
  4. Email, both work and personal
  5. Surfing the net – I don’t do this nearly as much as I thought I would. Most of my surfing is the result of following a link in Twitter or Google+

One of the things I’ve been playing with is launchers. Throw in the fact that I’ve been recently considering converting to a Windows 7 smartphone and you can imagine my intrigue when I came across Launcher 7 for Android.

Description from the Android Market:

    A Windows Phone 7 style launcher for Android.

    Unlike other current WP7 launchers (Windows Phone Android, Metro UI), this one allows you to properly modify your start screen. Just long press on a tile and drag tile where you want!

    I installed Launcher 7 and have been using it for about a week. I like it a lot. It does seem a little weird to be running a Windows 7 launcher on a Nook Color rooted to run Android.
    Overall I like the Windows 7 Phone experience. One thing that’s missing is widgets. Having widgets for Android is a real game changer for me. I use widgets for a lot of things; weather, Evernote, news, calendar, agenda, alarm  clock, etc. I’m not sure I want to live without them.
    Final verdict? I think I like having widgets enough to continue using Android for now. My new launcher of choice? Go Launcher EX

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