So the Nook Tablet has a dumb little quirk: of its 16GB capacity, only a gig is freely accessible to users, meaning anything you don't download through Barnes and Noble, or any approved app, is limited to that teensy sliver of memory.
Maximum PC first made the discovery yesterday, and Barnes and Noble confirmed the news. Three gigs are devoted to the OS and its functions, while another 12 are solely for the Nook ecosystem. In speaking with the company, they told me that the move was mostly to prevent confusion among customers who might load up their device with a bunch of movies and music, and then run into capacity troubles with apps and magazines later (which can take up hundreds of megabytes apiece). And on paper that may sound fine, but surely anyone smart enough to sideload files on the Nook Tablet is also smart enough to remove them.
And sure, most people will likely be getting their content through the Nook ecosystem anyways, but is it really such a big deal that you have to wall up the majority of the storage? To be fair, if it's an issue, you can plug in a microSD card and have another 16 gigs to use as you wish. But that means more hassle and more money. You paid for 16GB, you should be able to use them however you want.
By comparison, the Kindle Fire, with only 8 gigs of storage, has made whatever's not partitioned off to the OS available to users. iOS devices don't give you free access to mass storage, but there are multiple ways to load your own photos, videos, MP3s and documents. On the Nook, you can't even save an email attachment if it's larger than a couple of megabytes.
Maybe it's not the end of the world, but it's certainly annoying. [Maximum PC]