Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color e-reader will now ship with just 1GB of its 5GB capacity available for side-loading content such as music and movie. Before this, users had all 5GB available for this purpose. B&N simply said the change was made to “ensure ample space for a customer’s Nook Library and Nook Apps” is available. Outside of any hacks that would remove the partition, users can still load multimedia files onto microSD cards thanks to the built-in slot.
Its decision is likely to dismay enthusiasts that have been seeing the Nook Color as a substitute for an iPad, Xoom, or other Android tablet. Its support for browsing, e-mail, and now third-party apps has covered many of the core bases, but at $249, makes it half as expensive as most of its equivalents.
My intent was the buy the Color Nook avertised with 5 GB of storage space. Last week, I returned two nooks to Best Buy that I thought were defective before I found out online that BN had changed the storage space to 1GB. Shame on you, BN. I called technical support-they thought it was defective also. Shame on you, BN that even your technical support people were not told. I am having some trust issues and wonder if this business relationship can continue.