Pandigital Novel Making its Way Back Onto Store Shelves; Gets Itself Hacked 1 comment
The Pandigital Novel seems to be slowly making its way back into Stores. I’ve found listings for it on the websites of Bed Bath & Beyond where it is $169.99, and at RadioShack where the Novel is $179.99, but is shown as currently out of stock. Bed Bath & Beyond also has a $20 rebate on the Novel, which would bring the price down to $149.99.
Kohl’s apparently received enough units to honor rain checks, and some stores may have the device in stock – my local store does not, and the novel is not on the Kohl’s website.
Nate over at The Digital Reader found the latest update, released on July 4, improved on some of the shortcomings of the Novel, but still left it very crash prone.
Nate also, with the help of members of the SlateDroid forum, was able to hack the Novel and bypass Pandigital’s software, which seems to be causing most of the problems. This will also allow you to install other apps, including various reading apps such as Kindle or Barnes & Noble for Android or whatever your personal favorites are.
Of course, hacking your new ereader to make it more functional will not be for everyone. I can’t imagine Pandigital figuring on their ereader turning into a cult classic device that people are buying to hack. But if it sells, I guess it is all good for them. Being readily hackable like this is one of the things that makes Android-based devices so cool.
If you don’t want to buy a Novel and hack it or wait for Pandigital to hopefully release a firmware update that fixes all of the problems, you might consider waiting a few more weeks for the Cruz Reader from Velocity Micro. At least in the video it looks faster and the touchscreen much more responsive.
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