Hello All,
Just thought I'd add my experience with CM on my Nook Color. I received the Nook from a friend who got an iPad mini - said he wasn't really using it anymore. I knew I wanted full Android, and one that was usable, so I got to work with trying a bunch of different solutions. What I ended up with is a very quick, responsive tablet that runs everything I need it to. I'm hoping this will help some users starting out who are looking for the best compromise between speed and functionality on this aging hardware. If you make any of these changes or suggestions I'm not responsible for damage to your hardware, software, body parts, blah blah blah. Thanks goes to various sources, but most of all to this forum and it's users for being an outstanding source of information. Again, these are all based off of MY experience with the tablet.
As far as the ROM, MiRaGe CyanogenMod 7.2. No question. I tried the official CyanogenMod, Miui, and couldn't even find phiremod (which isn't being worked on). CyanagenMod is current and has an active community with guides for help and support, and the MiRaGe variant has some pretty slick modifications that work very well on the Nook.
I find installing to the internal memory "slightly" faster, resulting in less issues. There's no reason to keep the stock OS on there for me, so I just removed it. You can find full EMMC installation instructions on this forum.
Out of the box with this install, it's pretty responsive.
Disable Wifi when the screen is off - it'll save you a bunch of battery, unless you're really concerned about notifications when you're not using it.
For applications, here's my experience:
1. Latest YouTube works well, but you'll need to deselect "HD" for each video as it loads. An inconvenience, but it works.
2. I've tried tons of versions of Netflix, and find version 1.8.1 the best for this installation. Streaming is smooth, and the UI is responsive. Once you install it, ignore the prompts from the Play store to update it.
3. Install MX Player to handle any type of video playback, including mp4s off the Internet - there's no built in support. It's fast, free and runs everything I've thrown at it.
4. Dolphin browser works really well on this installation. I find it the best balance of performance and features.
Now, the most important part, and believe it or not this made the most difference for me - disable the phone software. Since 7.2 was primarily developed for phones, the cell and phone services are still running, sucking up battery and CPU. You can see the service Cell Standby running constantly. Here's how to wipe it out.
1. Download Root Browser, free from the Market.
2. Navigate to /System/Apps
3. Delete (I know, you could freeze, rename or move, but I won't need these again, and didn't experience any issues afterwards) the following files in this order:
VoiceDialer.apk
TelephonyProvider.apk
Mms.apk
Phone.apk
The "normal" uninstall option won't work. For each of these items, and the one below, tap and hold until you see the full menu of commands. From there, tap Delete. After you delete Phone.apk, you'll get stuck in a loop that the service failed, and you'll have to keep force closing it. Just reboot at this point.
4. Back in Root Browser, go to /Data/Data
5. Delete com.android.phone
6. Reboot.
At this point, my Nook boots cold in about 20 seconds, and application transitions are snappy. I haven't experienced any crashes with this configuration, and that's steady use of Gmail, Facebook, Dolphin, Netflix, YouTube, Feedly and various other apps. All apps except for Netflix are the most current versions from the store and work perfectly.
It goes without saying that most games won't work well, but if you're looking to get some productivity out of this tablet, these settings worked the best for me.
Hi!
webman2k said:
Hello All,
Just thought I'd add my experience with CM on my Nook Color. I received the Nook from a friend who got an iPad mini - said he wasn't really using it anymore. I knew I wanted full Android, and one that was usable, so I got to work with trying a bunch of different solutions. What I ended up with is a very quick, responsive tablet that runs everything I need it to. I'm hoping this will help some users starting out who are looking for the best compromise between speed and functionality on this aging hardware. If you make any of these changes or suggestions I'm not responsible for damage to your hardware, software, body parts, blah blah blah. Thanks goes to various sources, but most of all to this forum and it's users for being an outstanding source of information. Again, these are all based off of MY experience with the tablet.
As far as the ROM, MiRaGe CyanogenMod 7.2. No question. I tried the official CyanogenMod, Miui, and couldn't even find phiremod (which isn't being worked on). CyanagenMod is current and has an active community with guides for help and support, and the MiRaGe variant has some pretty slick modifications that work very well on the Nook.
I find installing to the internal memory "slightly" faster, resulting in less issues. There's no reason to keep the stock OS on there for me, so I just removed it. You can find full EMMC installation instructions on this forum.
Out of the box with this install, it's pretty responsive.
Disable Wifi when the screen is off - it'll save you a bunch of battery, unless you're really concerned about notifications when you're not using it.
For applications, here's my experience:
1. Latest YouTube works well, but you'll need to deselect "HD" for each video as it loads. An inconvenience, but it works.
2. I've tried tons of versions of Netflix, and find version 1.8.1 the best for this installation. Streaming is smooth, and the UI is responsive. Once you install it, ignore the prompts from the Play store to update it.
3. Install MX Player to handle any type of video playback, including mp4s off the Internet - there's no built in support. It's fast, free and runs everything I've thrown at it.
4. Dolphin browser works really well on this installation. I find it the best balance of performance and features.
Now, the most important part, and believe it or not this made the most difference for me - disable the phone software. Since 7.2 was primarily developed for phones, the cell and phone services are still running, sucking up battery and CPU. You can see the two services running under the battery monitoring (Phone Idle and Cell Standby). Here's how to wipe them out.
1. Download Root Browser, free from the Market.
2. Navigate to /System/Apps
3. Delete (I know, you could freeze, rename or move, but I won't need these again, and didn't experience any issues afterwards) the following files in this order:
VoiceDialer.apk
TelephonyProvider.apk
Mms.apk
Phone.apk
After you delete Phone.apk, you'll get stuck in a loop that the service failed, and you'll have to keep force closing it. Just reboot at this point.
4. Back in Root Browser, go to /Data/Data
5. Delete com.android.phone
6. Reboot.
At this point, my Nook boots cold in about 12 seconds, and application transitions are snappy. I haven't experienced any crashes with this configuration, and that's steady use of Gmail, Facebook, Dolphin, Netflix, YouTube, Feedly and various other apps. All apps except for Netflix are the most current versions from the store and work perfectly.
It goes without saying that most games won't work well, but if you're looking to get some productivity out of this tablet, these settings worked the best for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really appreciate this. I'm trying to update my nook color instead of buying a nexus 7 since I only need a 'tablet' for basic things. I'm really new to all of this, and did an SD root of 7.0.1 since my attempts of 10.2 left my nook super slow. I'm looking to do a full root now that my warranty is up and the 7.0.1 just isn't meeting my needs.
I'm going to attempt the route you went down. Can you provide any links that you used? Sorry if this is asking for too much... I'm really new to all of this and don't know where to start.
Do you find that your programs stop responding at all? I am having the issue now and my main goal is to get that to stop. I'm not sure if thats a rom problem, an SD card problem... or something I did wrong. I hope to use my NC to read, surf the web, email, sync with google calendar... and access google drive.
RedCello said:
I really appreciate this. I'm trying to update my nook color instead of buying a nexus 7 since I only need a 'tablet' for basic things. I'm really new to all of this, and did an SD root of 7.0.1 since my attempts of 10.2 left my nook super slow. I'm looking to do a full root now that my warranty is up and the 7.0.1 just isn't meeting my needs.
I'm going to attempt the route you went down. Can you provide any links that you used? Sorry if this is asking for too much... I'm really new to all of this and don't know where to start.
Do you find that your programs stop responding at all? I am having the issue now and my main goal is to get that to stop. I'm not sure if thats a rom problem, an SD card problem... or something I did wrong. I hope to use my NC to read, surf the web, email, sync with google calendar... and access google drive.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello RedCello,
Yeah - first thing I tried when I got the Nook was the latest CM nightly. And while it was pretty cool to have the latest Android running on 3 year old hardware, it certainly showed. The biggest drawback of the hardware is RAM. The Nook only has 512mb, and running modern apps can take up quite a bit. That's why the most important part of any mod for this hardware is good RAM management. Stock 7.2 is good, but I was constantly running out of RAM, resulting in very sluggish app performance, much like you're experiencing. Keeping Clean Master (free from the store) installed and wiping the ram when it notified me kept things moving, but when I finally tried the MiRaGe ROM, I didn't even have to use it. I wouldn't say it runs like a Nexus, but even animations run relatively smoothly, and I have no trouble with Netflix, Dolphin, Facebook, Feedly, Youtube, and others.
If you have recovery installed to the EMMC, you can grab the latest ROM and kernel updates at the link below. All you'll need are those two zips, and the gapps for 7.2:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1344873
http://goo.im/gapps
The MiRaGe thread has all the instructions for that rom, and here's the link to the general EMMC install instructions:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1030227
If you only installed to an SD before, this will guide you to create the bootable SD, from which you can install the 3 zips. Pretty simple, and the result is a VERY functional old tablet.
webman2k said:
Hello RedCello,
Yeah - first thing I tried when I got the Nook was the latest CM nightly. And while it was pretty cool to have the latest Android running on 3 year old hardware, it certainly showed. The biggest drawback of the hardware is RAM. The Nook only has 512mb, and running modern apps can take up quite a bit. That's why the most important part of any mod for this hardware is good RAM management. Stock 7.2 is good, but I was constantly running out of RAM, resulting in very sluggish app performance, much like you're experiencing. Keeping Clean Master (free from the store) installed and wiping the ram when it notified me kept things moving, but when I finally tried the MiRaGe ROM, I didn't even have to use it. I wouldn't say it runs like a Nexus, but even animations run relatively smoothly, and I have no trouble with Netflix, Dolphin, Facebook, Feedly, Youtube, and others.
If you have recovery installed to the EMMC, you can grab the latest ROM and kernel updates at the link below. All you'll need are those two zips, and the gapps for 7.2:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1344873
http://goo.im/gapps
The MiRaGe thread has all the instructions for that rom, and here's the link to the general EMMC install instructions:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1030227
If you only installed to an SD before, this will guide you to create the bootable SD, from which you can install the 3 zips. Pretty simple, and the result is a VERY functional old tablet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks so much! I'm going to give it a shot either tonight or tomorrow. I might post again in I run across any issues. Thanks again!
RedCello said:
Thanks so much! I'm going to give it a shot either tonight or tomorrow. I might post again in I run across any issues. Thanks again!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've installed it and for the brief 10 minutes I've been using - it is great! Thanks for your instructions. links, and tips.
I've followed your suggestions but I can't get root browser to work. Any ideas? It loads properly but when I try to uninstall the files, it says uninstall unsuccessful. I noticed you mentioned that you could freeze items and such, I don't see those options which makes me wonder if I'm doing something wrong. Any clue?
RedCello said:
I've installed it and for the brief 10 minutes I've been using - it is great! Thanks for your instructions. links, and tips.
I've followed your suggestions but I can't get root browser to work. Any ideas? It loads properly but when I try to uninstall the files, it says uninstall unsuccessful. I noticed you mentioned that you could freeze items and such, I don't see those options which makes me wonder if I'm doing something wrong. Any clue?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Forgot that part, I'll update the OP. Tap and hold the items you want to remove to get the full menu, then choose delete. It'll work from there.
webman2k said:
Forgot that part, I'll update the OP. Tap and hold the items you want to remove to get the full menu, then choose delete. It'll work from there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Got it, thanks! I've been using the NC constantly and it fills all my needs, so much that I won't be upgrading now. Thanks for your post. It convinced me to give it a shot and I'm so glad I did!
RedCello said:
Got it, thanks! I've been using the NC constantly and it fills all my needs, so much that I won't be upgrading now. Thanks for your post. It convinced me to give it a shot and I'm so glad I did!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem, glad I could help. I'm actually quite surprised at how capable this tablet is, considering the specs.
Thanks for this. I've been using CM 10.1.3 but it was real sluggish. I had some success with the V6 Supercharger, but I may give the MiRaGe 7.2 if it works as well as you say.
Cm 10.2 M1 is the best to me, cross breeder is a must to run it smoothly
xflier said:
Cm 10.2 M1 is the best to me, cross breeder is a must to run it smoothly
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What has Cross Breeder done for you? I am assuming this is it:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2113150
xflier said:
Cm 10.2 M1 is the best to me, cross breeder is a must to run it smoothly
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really like the nightlies, and if they bring KitKat to the Nook Color, I'll surely try that. However, in my trials, NOTHING touches the speed and stability of this rom. Also, there's tons more free ram on a CM7 base, which helps tremendously. But the most important difference is the touch screen responsiveness. With CM7 (and MiRaGe), the touchscreen responds instantly and accurately. The CM10 builds - through to the latest nightlies - all have responsiveness issues with the screen. Some apps require multiple touches, etc.
You're not getting the latest and greatest features here, but what I was looking to do was get the best balance of features and performance, to make this old tablet something I'd want to use on a daily basis. This rom does it for me.
webman2k said:
I really like the nightlies, and if they bring KitKat to the Nook Color, I'll surely try that. However, in my trials, NOTHING touches the speed and stability of this rom. Also, there's tons more free ram on a CM7 base, which helps tremendously. But the most important difference is the touch screen responsiveness. With CM7 (and MiRaGe), the touchscreen responds instantly and accurately. The CM10 builds - through to the latest nightlies - all have responsiveness issues with the screen. Some apps require multiple touches, etc.
You're not getting the latest and greatest features here, but what I was looking to do was get the best balance of features and performance, to make this old tablet something I'd want to use on a daily basis. This rom does it for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Nook screen re-calibrator app fixed the screen issues for me.
JoshMcMadMac said:
The Nook screen re-calibrator app fixed the screen issues for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It seems to help, but I think it's an issue of resources as well. on CM7, taps equal a response every time. There are some instances where I have to tap a few times on the nightly, or the tap zone is "off". It'll always work, but it can be very sensitive. For example, navigating Netflix can be frustrating at times. It can read a tap as a swipe if it's not precise enough. I don't seem to have that problem on CM7 builds.
I've gone back to the nightlies right now, to see the progress, and I'm incredibly impressed. If anything, it gets me excited for 4.4. From what I've read, that'll really breath new life into this tablet.
Thanks for the great writeup, have had my Nook for awhile and keep updating and since the latest one I noticed alot of weird things and bad batter life. Did what you suggested and everything seems to be working better now. Was just wondering if anyone would suggest a more lightweight launcher or is ADW the best for battery life (or does it really make a difference)? And any other suggestions for increasing battery life would be helpful to
I started with official cm7.2 and went up and down the cm tree ( cm9, cm10, phiremod) and then some ParanoidAndroid,MIUI, . Somewhere in between I found the mirage rom and to be honest by this time, all I needed my nook color was for the kids and their apps and constant usage of many apps in just a few minutes. That was the the Deciding factor and for some reason mirage ROM got laggy as hell when it was 'multitasking'. I also was not able to get the USB host to work and V6 supercharger has some problems and did not install some scripts, nook tweaks CPU settings were incompatible and WiFi title was a trouble for the kids since enabling/disabling would take them into the settings and they would muck everything up in there.
So I stuck with the official cm7.2 with the help of v6 supercharger (supercharge,kick as kernelizer, battery calibrator), voltage and stepping tweaks with the help of Nook Tweaks on the market, flash player (pre ics) and adding adw ex.
Let's see addressing the YouTube not playing hd even download vids , you can help by installing rolletube side by side with official YouTube app (g**gle it) or
https : //code.google.com/p/r7android/downloads/detail?name=Rolle%20Tube.r7android.com.apk (added some spaces, can't post links yet).
Credit: http : //forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1069911 (again with the spaces oyyy).
On a side note has anyone tried krylon360 ROM if so, do you still have it to share?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
xflier said:
Cm 10.2 M1 is the best to me, cross breeder is a must to run it smoothly
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Weird, I'm getting a status 7 error...
MGREX said:
Weird, I'm getting a status 7 error...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you using v6045 or newer CWM? That causes that error. You need to use an older version of CWM.
Sent from my BN NookHD+ using XDA Premium HD app
How does CM11 in its current state compare with running the MiRage 7.2 ROM? I'm going to be giving my old Nook Color to my mother and want to put something on it that will run decent.
mogators1 said:
How does CM11 in its current state compare with running the MiRage 7.2 ROM? I'm going to be giving my old Nook Color to my mother and want to put something on it that will run decent.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hadn't used my Nook in a while and was thinking of putting it on Ebay, so I decided to update CM and see how it ran, or go back to stock. I decided to stick to CM10.x hoping the Netflix fixes might work, so this isn't CM11...but for the life of me, as much as I respect CM in all it's glory, it just seemed to be nowhere near as snappy/responsive as I have liked. Not sure why, maybe the newer versions are too much for the older Nook Color hardware or something. I had a heck of a time even using the browser as the screen touch response just wasn't what I expected.
Prior to restoring to stock, I came across this post and the OP's experience with his Nook using MiRage 7.2. I installed it this afternoon and I'm really pleased so far. Everything seems as responsive as I'd expect it to be, and I did remove the phone stuff as he suggested. I prefer to download and sideload my .apk's, but everything seems to be running well; very nicely in fact. I did load the 1.5.2 version of Netflix, as was suggested for this MiRage CM version, but haven't had a chance to try it yet, so I can't report on that.
But for my part, I'm much happier with the MiRage version than the most recent CM version(s), and it makes it a nice day-to-day tablet.
...thanks..
Sorry for the general tone of the question. I've had cm10.1 and now cm11 (a nightly) from just before m11 was released. All the time I've been using these roms I've always had the browser FC (doesn't matter which one, they all FC, losing my open tabs, although I use Dolphin mostly), and also, frequentl, the keyboard doesn't stay up - it just pops up and then closes before I can use it. I hardly ever get shutdowns but the other FC and keyboards problems are so annoying.
Do I have to do something in particular like manage the ram using a utility or is it just the nature of CM11?
Edit : by the way, I did proper clean installs of CM, all by the book. And by the way, the two other Nooks in the house have the same problem, and one of them freezes occasionally.
You might consider using logcat to see if there some common culprits to the problems you're experiencing.
Frenchdroid said:
Sorry for the general tone of the question. I've had cm10.1 and now cm11 (a nightly) from just before m11 was released. All the time I've been using these roms I've always had the browser FC (doesn't matter which one, they all FC, losing my open tabs, although I use Dolphin mostly), and also, frequentl, the keyboard doesn't stay up - it just pops up and then closes before I can use it. I hardly ever get shutdowns but the other FC and keyboards problems are so annoying.
Do I have to do something in particular like manage the ram using a utility or is it just the nature of CM11?
Edit : by the way, I did proper clean installs of CM, all by the book. And by the way, the two other Nooks in the house have the same problem, and one of them freezes occasionally.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It happens to me too(CM10.1) with every browser without distinction.
don't know if it's because I have the ROM installed on sdcard instead of on emmc but when I used a hybrid build it happened too.
So I'm guessing it's inherent to all ROMs on the nookHD/+ as I don't remember it ever happening on stock nook OS., but it also happens on the HD.
It's really annoying and I wonder if other people don't experience it.
If you don't experience the random browser force close, could you name which ROM/version/emmc/sd/etc you're using?
Frenchdroid said:
Sorry for the general tone of the question. I've had cm10.1 and now cm11 (a nightly) from just before m11 was released. All the time I've been using these roms I've always had the browser FC (doesn't matter which one, they all FC, losing my open tabs, although I use Dolphin mostly), and also, frequentl, the keyboard doesn't stay up - it just pops up and then closes before I can use it. I hardly ever get shutdowns but the other FC and keyboards problems are so annoying.
Do I have to do something in particular like manage the ram using a utility or is it just the nature of CM11?
Edit : by the way, I did proper clean installs of CM, all by the book. And by the way, the two other Nooks in the house have the same problem, and one of them freezes occasionally.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you look at my signature you can see that I can only manage at most in the 300 hour range on the nook hd+ till a force reboot. And in between then mostly firefox and background services often fc.
And that's not an android specific problem as my phone is currently over 1725 hours with all kinds of use and no fc's that I can ever remember nor any forced reboots. Even though I hardly use the browser on it, I wouldn't expect it to do what happens on the nook.
[On the nook] Firefox fc's when too much ram is used, [ram seems correct. Never checked exactly] but it comes back up with all tabs, and certain websites won't even load because its too much [or something with that appearance]. Firefox also causes fc's [to happen] on background services..
There are apps for easy access to the ram management settings, but I don't care enough to try [I would buy a new device to improve everything over this old tablet]. Found out first hand though that they don't help when there's a hardware defect.
[Still, all I really know about it is that like yours, my nook hd+ isn't nearly as stable as it could or should be. Never really looked into it.]