Android Market on the Pandigital Nova - A Failed Experiment

I've had the Pandigital Nova for over a year now, and even though it's a low-end tablet, it works fairly well as an ereader, email, and web-surfing platform. It may not be as robust or have the support base of many other high-end tablets, but it's also quite a bit cheaper. For those of you who happen to have the Nova, you probably already know one of its biggest limitations: no access to the Android Market (aka Google Play). Even though that's never been a big problem for me, I thought it would be a nice feature to have, since third-party apps don't always do it. Well, that feature ended up being more trouble then it's worth.

I found a set of online directions here for rooting the Nova as well as installing, fixing, and updating Market. The first step was to boot the Nova into recovery mode and install an update package which would root the device. That went off without a hitch, and I successfully rebooted. Next, I got back into the recovery mode and installed another package, this time the installer for Market and several other included applications. That install also was successful. When I rebooted a third time, I found the Market icon and tried searching for several popular apps, including Dropbox, Gmail, and Youtube, but to no avail. Following the article's directions on what to do if apps were missing from the Market, I still couldn't resolve the problem. 

I ended up installing and reinstalling new and old firmware several times as well as doing a hard reset multiple times, loosing all my installed apps and settings in the process. I even went back and started the procedure from scratch, this time including a few optional steps the author of the tutorial had used to fix a few problems he had encountered. That ended up making Market work a little better, but it still wasn't where it should be. I probably should have cut my losses then, but being the perfectionist I am, I was still determined to make this work.

Tired and frustrated (by this time, it was almost 8:00 at night), I tried installing the new Google Play app on top of everything else I did, which ended up almost being a fatal mistake. After a reboot, my Nova would freeze at the Pandigital splash screen, and attempting a hard reset had no affect. I also tried manually installing the old firmware, but it wouldn't let me. I was pretty nervous at this point that I had succeed in turning my tablet into a useless paperweight, but I had one more thing to try. I downloaded an even older version of the firmware from Pandigital's website and successfully installed it from my SD card. Thankfully, my tablet booted, and I was able to upgrade to the latest firmware from there. After taking a little time to put everything back the way I like it, I'm now back up and running, sans the Android Market and the other official Google apps that came with it. I would have liked to save them if I could, but I'm just happy to be up and running. Folks, this is a perfect example of how not to install Market on your unsanctioned Android device. Even though risk is a big part of R&D, I think I'll leave my tablet well enough alone for now. That was a bit too close for comfort.

The more I think about it, the root of my problems (no pun intended) probably lies in the fact that the Android Market was recently merged with several other Google services to form Google Play. Throw in the fact that the Nova isn't a sanctioned Android device and that the tutorial I was referencing is over a year old, and you've got a recipe for disaster. It wasn't a total loss, though, since I did learn quite a bit about Android system recovery, firmware updates, and what it means to root a device. I also took the opportunity to customize my home screen a bit.

With that said, I may try my luck with the Amazon Apps Store, which seems much less concerned with whether a device is 'officially sanctioned' or not, and it doesn't require any rooting or a tutorial to install (I foresee a follow-up article in the near future...). Pandigital Nova users: please do let me know if you've had better success with installing Market/Google Play then I did. I probably won't go there again, but I am curious, since no doubt someone will find a way eventually. As our good friend Spock says, "There are always possibilities...".

As always, thanks for reading, and for those of you here in the States, Happy Labor Day!