Thanks to a friend who works at Barnes & Noble I had some quality time with the new nook tablet the day before its launch.  With that quick time I learned a few things I’d like to share.

The home screen seems to be a good hybrid between a desktop (lock apps) and a “coverflow” recent apps concept.  Very user friendly.  The browser is solid and fast.  Netflix is clean and crisp.  A facebook app is MIA (probably a good thing just go on the browser).  Comics are nice if that’s what you’re into (my B&N friend is) and while they won’t replace new ones… they will help you get your hands on old, out of print or rare ones which is cool.  Magazines are crisp and you can probably stop getting them in the mail.  Books are books, but its no eInk.  All in all it lives up to its name as the “reader’s tablet”.  Except to do reading things (books, magazines, comics) and video things (Netflix, Hulu) and a bit of web browsing.  The appstore is in serious need of some more apps!  B&N needs to open that floodgate of android apps a little bit more (approve some more).

I except in the coming days to have a side by side review of the nook tablet and Kindle Fire, so check back soon!

So you’re thinking of making the jump from a featurephone to a full fledged smartphone.

Surely your biggest concern is not the phone… but the PLAN.  Not only are those “data plans” scary and confusing but they’re insanely expensive.  In short Sprint has the best value…. a truly unlimited… but let’s look at Verizon (who keeps step and step with AT&T) and who more of you are likely to be upgrading from “basic” to “full blown” with.

A quick price check will have you realize you’re looking at $79.99+ for 450 minutes, unlimited messaging and 300 mb of data!  Insane!  If you need to sign a two year Sprint’s is the same for unlimited! (mobile to mobile, messaging and data)

So what is your BEST android value?  It probably lies with the prepaid players… including Boost and Virgin Mobile both have completely unlimited plans for $55, and unlimited data plans starting at $35!  So how do those guys stack up since they’re not going to “subsidize” your fakely inflated phone cost.

First, you’d be surprise how hard it is to find full phone specs.  Ever since Apple started using “magic” to sell iPhones full specs are relegated to the geek websites… and processor manufactures aren’t always easy to come by etc.

Quickly you will see Verizon has Motorola’s latest greatest Droid RAZR offering for $299 WITH TWO YEAR contract.  Sure that sucker is svelte, dual core, and damn sexy, but what does that other core do?  No idea?  And memory?  Buy an SD card they’re ten bucks!

Virgin Mobile has their Motorola offering the Triumph… which looks just like any other android phone by Motorola and is $299 with NO CONTRACT (they have a Samsung android offering for $99!).  Sure its only a single core, but it even comes with a memory card to increase the internal storage (so you can save that ten bucks for now until you buy all the apps).  Otherwise its android 2.2 (instead of 2.3, but I’m sure a minor upgrade is on its way), 3G (you don’t want to pay for 4G since you don’t have it!), WiFi, Bluetooth, and all the other things every smartphone has.

What’s the difference?  Besides a 2 yr contract and a ton of money each month…. very little that the average Joe consumer will notice.  Sure you won’t be FLYING through apps or downloading at 4G… but you’re not going to notice… and your wallet will be ready to upgrade WAY sooner than your buddy who just signed 2 yrs with VZW!

Today is the day.  November 15th.  The day the tech world changed… Just over a week from black Friday 2011… and Kindle Fire is hitting shelves (or in my case a UPS truck).

How does the Amazon Kindle Fire stack up against the current reigning tablet champion, the Apple iPad 2?

Sure there is a lot of gray area in here with which to dispute, but let’s talk about the cold hard facts:

As you can clearly see spec for spec they’re the same… except that pesky $301 dollars and a little storage you’re NOT going to use… I have yet to use ONE GIGABYTE on my android phone…. sure I’m not downloading Oscar winning films, but isn’t that what Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime (on the Fire) are for?  Its called “streaming” its 2011.

So who wins?  Kindle Fire.  I’m not going to even bother saying it depends on what you’re using it for.  That’s just what people who have Apple ads on their website say.  If you want a “true tablet” experience that will “replace your PC” turn to the Motorola Xoom, or the upcoming Asus Transformer Prime with android and a Tegra 3 processor, five Benjamins will buy you one of those and the specs will kick the crap out of the iPad.

If you want a tablet for media consumption and web surfing to supplement the Windows box you ALREADY OWN… the Kindle Fire… hands down… unless you have a nook e-reader… then buy the nook color or nook tablet… to stay in the Barnes & Noble ecosystem.  But if this is your first tablet/ereader.  Save $300… or buy one for your lady friend for Christmas and burn $100 at the casino.

Mac OS X.  Perhaps the gold standard of Apple desktop operating systems since 2001 (didn’t want Steve Ballmer calling me out!)  has gone through many iterations over the last ten years.

While many of you have recently made the upgrade from Snow Leopard to Lion I am here to tell you get your Mighty Mouse ready to click over to Apple.com.

While Apple didn’t want to overshadow the passing of Steve Jobs with this major announcement.  I have it on good authority (made up) that the next iteration of OS X will be: Mac OS X Liger!

Begin lining up around your nearest Apple store because those who camp out will be given a special edition DVD (not compatible with recent Mac Minis without optical drives) that will feature Mac OS X Liger on one side and the complete Unrated version of the smash hit Napoleon Dynamite on the other!

It is also rumored that Mac OS X Liger will not only be compatible with desktops and laptops, but the recently released iPhone 4S (Sport) will be upgraded to Liger after the less then enthused response from anyone who isn’t a diehard Apple nutcase (most people).

No firm date of the launch of Liger yet, but stay tuned as we will keep you updated!

In one of my weekly circles a group of otherwise normal 20 and 30 year olds get together, have some beers and shoot the shit.

The occupations range from contractor to attorney and everything in between.  The conversations range from real estate, cars, politics and the metric system.

Last night, the topic was android.  At 10PM EST, somewhere in Hong Kong Google made an executive decision.  To no longer make any sense at all, and forfeit all their market share to iOS and other competitors (Kindle Fire?).

What do I mean.  They released the Samsung Google Galaxy Nexus running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.  What?

Let’s break that down.  The top of the line Samsung phones have been “Galaxy”s and the top of the line Google phones (made by Samsung) have been “Nexus”s.  In an effort to (prepare for purchasing Motorola) make the most awesome phone in the world Google-Samsung came out with the Galaxy Nexus.

In an effort to catch up with the number “5″ (as in iOS 5) they skipped a whole boatload of numbers and common sense and released a minor upgrade known as “Android OS 4.0″.  At the same time they didn’t want to ruin the whole dessert naming system they have going (with limited logic see also Honeycomb for $400).  So the name of the OS, Ice Cream Sandwich (‘i’ comes after ‘h’).

Part of our conversation last night was to discuss what version of the OS each person was running, and while most phones were running Gingerbread (if are playing along at home that’s the last “phone” OS) while one sad fellow was stuck at Eclair!  While it has now become the joke of the group, the bigger joke is this consumer unfriendly naming and numbering system that makes no sense! (A little rant on why people can’t figure out how to buy Android Phones and other things)

In short, Google, listen to Steve Ballmer, and start making phones for non Computer Scientists!