西游记外传 电视剧:高性价比平板电脑让iPad靠边站-华尔街日报

高性价比平板电脑让iPad靠边站正文 评论(39) 更多投资回报的文章 » 投稿 打印 转发 MSN推荐 博客引用 分享到新浪微博 分享到搜狐微博 转播到腾讯微博 英文字体当苹果公司(Apple)的iPad 2在3月11日这天上市发售时，可能有许多人排队等着花500美元或是更多的钱来得到这部平板电脑。

Associated Press巴诺(Barnes & Noble)的Nook Color可以被修改为一部平板电脑，且其花费比购买其他平板电脑要少得多。我不想为了一部平板电脑花上500美元。连400美元我也不愿意花。

于是我到网上看了看，最后，我用更少的钱买到了一部全新的平板电脑。

价格是多少呢？不到200美元，而且只用了我大约20分钟时间。

绝对没开玩笑。

它当然无法与iPad 2 相媲美——接下来我会有详细的叙述——但它完美地满足了我的需求。当然，我说的并不是某家中国网站上卖的那种山寨式平板电脑。

我买的是巴诺(Barnes & Noble)的Nook Color平板电脑（花了190美元，税另付，当时网上正好做促销，通常的价格要250美元）。然后我从网上下载了一款十分简便好用且绝对合法的软体修改程式，把我的Nook Color变成了一部搭载谷歌(Google) Android操作平台的全面运行的平板电脑。这款软体修改程式是一种破解程式，可以破解巴诺对一些功能的限制。操作方法来自于拥有良好口碑的科技网站Ars Technica，按照上面的一步步提示，操作起来很容易。

我其实并没指望它能好用。我只是把它当作一个试验品。不过它的表现着实让我对它另眼相看。

Nook Color的设计初衷主要是为了用来看书和看杂志，其大小大概是iPad和Xoom的一半，重量则要轻30%左右。它支持Wi-Fi，但不支持3G。它的萤幕无疑是棒极了。此外，你如果对软体进行破解后，它还可以运行许多Android程式，从电子邮件到新闻阅读器TweetDeck，再到游戏“愤怒的小鸟”。

具有讽刺意味的是，它甚至还可以运行巴诺的竞争对手亚马逊公司(Amazon.com) 的Kindle程式。所以现在我可以用我的Nook Color去看Kindle电子书。

需要提醒的是，软体破解后出现的任何情况都是后果自负的。巴诺说实施破解软体操作后你的品质保证单就失效了。我的破解过程还算顺利，不过我在网路聊天室里发现至少有几个人出现了问题。如果产品出了问题，你只有靠自己了。

当然，我这台平板电脑是无法与iPad、Xoom或是Galaxy相提并论的。它没有任何的摄像装置，处理器的速度也没有那么快。它不是为那些追求强大配置的电脑使用者而设计的。影像支援也相当有限。有些Android的程式仍然无法在上面运行。热衷于电脑游戏的玩家用了它一定会觉得失望。

不过作为一款低配置的平板电脑，它显然很适合我——而且我想，对很多人来说也是如此。的确，我有时候觉得它比那些体积更大的平板电脑更好一些，因为它真的会“溜进”我的大衣口袋。（我讨厌随身带着东西。）

所有这些让我产生了三个关于经济方面的想法。

首先，巴诺需要加快行动，让人们无需破解就可以在Nook Color上运行这些程式。巴诺显然是想阻止亚马逊的Kindle应用程式，因为他们想让消费者从BarnesandNoble.com上买书。可为什么要阻止其他程式呢？要想让自己的产品更有吸引力，他们怎么可以让消费者的产品保证书失效呢？

如果消费者买来Nook Color后马上就可以收发电子邮件并运行Facebook等程式，那么Nook Color将会卖得更好。（我发现每次我在它上面玩游戏，它就会马上弹出eBay页面。但多数人希望如此。）一旦他们将这些Nook Color搭载了Android操作平台，它们就会更为市场所接受，在消费者手中它们将会成为称职的“特洛伊木马”，向人们售卖巴诺的书籍以及杂志。换句话说，它将有助于公司业务模式的发展，而不是拖后腿。

目前巴诺只提供少数几款应用程式，比如网路音乐服务程式“潘朵拉”(Pandora)。该公司承诺将会在适当的时候推出一个完整的应用程式商店。可自从Nook Color去年秋天上市以来，这种话就一直在说了。该公司一名发言人到昨天都还在说其应用程式商店仍在“筹备中”。

看来时间并不是这家公司的朋友。它必须在能够抓住时机的时候把握住它。巴诺的股价最近报收11.67美元，为14年以来的低点，而五年前它曾超过了40美元。即便是主要竞争对手Borders Group目前正身处困境也没能对巴诺产生提振效应，Borders Group公司已经申请了破产保护，关闭了旗下的许多商店。

第二个看法是，这些平板电脑可能将成为价格低廉的、类似于普通商品的东西，而且这种变化的速度也许比你想像的还要快。

想想吧，巴诺——一家在科技创新领域很难算作是领头羊的公司——在短期内从头做起，成功推出了一款颇为不错的可以搭载Android操作平台的平板电脑，而且售价只要250美元（甚至更低，如果你像我一样赶上促销的话）。它不是一款高端机型，但它却有着优质的萤幕——分析师会告诉你，这通常是平板电脑中最昂贵的部件之一。

投资苹果、摩托罗拉移动(Motorola Mobility)、三星(Samsung)、惠普(Hewlett-Packard)、Research In Motion等公司的人对平板电脑寄予了很大希望。人人都在津津乐道，所有这些平板电脑以及它们所使用的“云计算”服务将会带来巨大的利润。单是苹果公司就已经成为了全世界市值第二大的公司，公司市值超过3000亿美元。

但对于这整个行业可能产生的长期利润，我表示怀疑。短期来看，它或许能带来丰厚的利润。而就长期而言，平板电脑将因为大量普及而变得不值钱。每一个操作平台都将提供你需要的所有应用程式。不管是哪一个品牌或是哪种机型都会为了保持竞争优势而绞尽脑汁。将来有一天，当我们回想起有一个时期人们会把平板电脑——或是智慧手机——看作一件令人兴奋的东西并且认为这个行业有利可图，我们会觉得可笑。

如果巴诺能在平板电脑上做得这么好，那么所有人都可以。

第三个关于经济的思考是什么呢？与其他最便宜的平板电脑相比，我的这部电脑帮我节省了200美元。这并不是一笔大数目。从很大程度上说它还只是一个试验品。尽管如此它仍是一笔实实在在的钱。而且即便是用挑剔的眼光看，它比许多人想的要更加物有所值。

我们是如此轻易地就忽视了数学。我今天省下的钱到我实际需要它时将会变成一笔不菲的数额，这个时间就是我退休的时候。我们的退休生活可能有20到30年，而众所周知，眼下社会保障体系正在与快速上涨的物价进行着艰苦卓绝的斗争。

如果今后30到35年中投资的平均回报率在减除通胀因素后能达到约5%，那么我省下的这200美元可以变成现在的五倍。到我七十多岁时，按照今天美元的价值，我会额外拥有1,000美元左右。

还不错呢。Move Over, Apple! My Tablet Cost $200正文 评论(39) 更多投资回报的文章 » 投稿 打印 转发 MSN推荐 博客引用 分享到新浪微博 分享到搜狐微博 转播到腾讯微博 中文字体A lot of people are likely to stand in line to pay $500 or more for Apple's iPad 2 when it goes on sale Friday.

I didn't want to spend $500 for a tablet computer. I didn't even want to spend $400.

So instead I went online and bought a brand-new tablet for a bit less.

The cost? Less than $200 ... and about 20 minutes of my time.

No kidding.

It's hardly a perfect comparison─more on this below─but the tablet is perfect for what I want. I'm not talking about one of those junk tablets from a Chinese website, either.

I bought a Barnes & Noble Nook Color tablet (for $190 plus tax from a temporary online promotion, down from the usual $250). And then I downloaded a very simple, perfectly legal software fix from the Internet that turned it into a fully functioning tablet running on Google's Android platform. The fix, known as a 'rooting,' unlocks Barnes & Noble's proprietary overlay. The instructions came via Ars Technica, a reputable site devoted to technology, and were pretty easy to follow.

I wasn't really expecting it to work. I tried it as an experiment. But the results were remarkable.

The Nook Color, which was designed mainly for reading books and magazines, is about half the size of an iPad or a Xoom. It weighs about 30% less. It runs on WiFi, but not 3G. It has an absolutely superb screen. And, once you've unlocked the software, it runs many Android applications, from email to news readers TweetDeck to, yes, Angry Birds.

It even, ironically, runs the Kindle app from Barnes & Noble's rival Amazon.com. So I can now use my Nook Color to read Kindle books.

Be aware that you perform this software hack entirely at your own risk. Barnes & Noble says it invalidates your warranty. The process ran smoothly for me, but when I read the Internet chat rooms, I found at least a few people had had problems. If it goes wrong, you're on your own.

Of course, it's hardly the same as an iPad or a Xoom or a Galaxy. It doesn't have any cameras. It has a slower processor. It's not for power users. The video support is pretty limited. A few Android programs still won't run on it. And dedicated gamers will doubtless find it frustrating.

But as a basic tablet, it's absolutely fine for me─and, I suspect, a lot of people. Indeed, I happen to prefer it to bigger rivals, because it actually slips into my overcoat pocket. (I hate having to carry things around.)

All this leads to three financial thoughts.

The first is that Barnes & Noble needs to get the lead out and let people run these applications on the Nook Color without having to jail-break it. Obviously they want to block Amazon's Kindle app, because they want customers to buy books from BarnesandNoble.com. But why block everything else? Why should I have to invalidate the warranty in order to make their product more attractive?

They'd sell a lot more of these babies if customers could run email and Facebook and so on out of the box. (The minute I catch myself playing games on this thing, it goes on eBay. But most people want to.) And once they get these Nook Colors into people's hands as an Android tablet, they would work pretty well as a Trojan horse to sell Barnes & Noble books and magazines as well. In other words, it would help the company's business model, not hinder it.

Barnes & Noble currently offers just a few applications, such as Pandora, the Internet music service. The company promises a full app store in due course. But it's been saying that since the product went on sale last fall. A company spokeswoman would only say yesterday that it is still 'in the works.'

Huh? Time is not this company's friend. It should be seizing the moment while it can. Barnes & Noble stock, which was north of $40 five years ago, closed Tuesday at $11.67, a 14-year low. Not even the travails of arch-rival Borders Group, which has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and is closing many of its stores, is helping.

The second observation is that these tablets are probably going to become cheap, near-commodity items, and maybe sooner than you think.

Think about this. Barnes & Noble─a company that is, ahem, hardly in the forefront of technological innovation─has managed to put together a pretty good Android tablet from scratch in short order, and is selling it for $250 (and even less if, like me, you catch a promotion). It's not a top-of-the-range model, but it does include a superb screen─and analysts will tell you that's typically one of the most expensive parts of a tablet.

Investors in Apple, Motorola Mobility, Samsung, Hewlett-Packard, Research In Motion and others are hoping for great things from tablet computers. It's all anyone wants to talk about─the huge profits to come from all these tablets and the 'cloud computing' services they use. Apple alone is the second-most-valuable company in the world, with an enterprise value of more than $300 billion.

Count me as deeply Missourian about the long-term profits likely to come from this entire industry. In the short run, there may be fantastic money to be made. In the long term, tablets will be a dime a dozen. Every platform will have all the apps you need. Any brand or model is going to have a tough challenge maintaining a competitive advantage over another. Someday we're going to look back and laugh at the day when people thought tablets─or smartphones─were exciting and profitable businesses to be in.

If Barnes & Noble can do it, anyone can.

The third financial thought? This tablet saved me $200 compared to the cheapest of its competitors. No, it's not a king's ransom. And it was mainly just an experiment. But this is real money nonetheless. And, critically, it's worth more than many people think.

How easily we overlook the math. Money I save today will compound enormously by the time I actually need it, which will be when I retire. We are likely to spend 20 to 30 years in retirement, and as we all know the entitlements system is struggling with rocketing costs.

If investments earn an average return of about 5% above inflation over the next 30 to 35 years, that $200 I saved will grow by a factor of five. I'll have an extra $1,000 or so, in today's dollars, in my 70s.

Not bad.

Brett Arends
 本文涉及股票或公司Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc.
总部地点：美国
上市地点：纽约证交所
股票代码：MMIVerizon Communications Inc.
总部地点：美国
上市地点：纽约证交所
股票代码：VZResearch in Motion Ltd.
总部地点：加拿大(Canada)
上市地点：纳斯达克
股票代码：RIMM苹果公司
英文名称：Apple Inc.
总部地点：美国
上市地点：纳斯达克
股票代码：AAPL电子艺界
英文名称：Electronic Arts Inc.
总部地点：美国
上市地点：纳斯达克
股票代码：ERTS亚马逊公司
英文名称：Amazon.com Inc.
总部地点：美国
上市地点：纳斯达克
股票代码：AMZNVodafone Group PLC ADS
总部地点：英国
上市地点：纳斯达克
股票代码：VOD沃达丰空中通讯公司
英文名称：Vodafone Group PLC
总部地点：英国
上市地点：伦敦
股票代码：VODResearch In Motion Ltd.
总部地点：加拿大(Canada)
上市地点：多伦多
股票代码：RIM

Brett Arends