A limited number of the children's books available for the Nook Color include interactive animations and the option to have a professional voice actor read the story.

It has a customized display with color options, six font sizes, and Internet browsing over Wi-Fi, as well as a built-in media player that supports audio and video.

The Nook Color allows installing applications approved by Barnes & Noble, with the company planning to provide tools for third-party software developers[5] and an app store.

[6] Applications pre-loaded on the Nook Color include Chess, Sudoku, crossword puzzles, Pandora Radio, and a media gallery for viewing pictures and video.

[7] Adobe Digital Editions installed on Laptops paired to the Nook Color enables downloads from public libraries (epub).

[citation needed] The Nook Color uses a Texas Instruments ARM Cortex-A8 processor running at 800 MHz which can be overclocked to 1.1 GHz.

[8] A firmware update released 25 April 2011 added an app store, email client, Flash support within the web browser, social networking tools, video and audio embedded within books, and performance improvements.

Android versions 2.2 (Froyo) 2.3 (Gingerbread), 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) 4.1-4.3 (Jelly Bean) and 4.4 (KitKat) have all been fully ported to the Nook Color and are available as free downloads.

[17][18] Perhaps the most popular such replacement is CyanogenMod 11, an enhanced version of Android 4.4 (Kitkat), which, as of September 2013, has over 55,000 reported installations on the Nook Color (codenamed "encore").

This change was made to increase the amount of power available to charge the larger battery of the Nook Color when using the included cable at 2A as opposed to the 0.5 A limit of standard USB connections.

Because of this, the USB cable included with the Nook Color is physically incompatible with other devices employing standard micro-USB connectors.