When Is Barnes and Noble Going to Have Nook Glowlight Plus Available Again

Amazon has dominated the e-reader industry for and then long that most of its competitors have either go niche products or faded out of being entirely. I'd forgive you for thinking Kindles were the only e-readers sold in the United States, simply not just is Barnes & Noble withal around, but the visitor continues to release new Nook readers. And I bought one.

The Nook lineup from Barnes & Noble had its best years in the early 2010s, when the company had more stores across the country to sell its wares. That's when I got my Nook Simple Impact, which I rooted and kept with me until its Android ii.1-based software could no longer run anything. Later that, I joined the rest of humanity in purchasing a Kindle e-reader.

It's easy to come across why Amazon has so easily captured the east-reader marketplace: the Kindle excels at what it does and oftentimes goes on sale. Even beyond having the largest drove of books, the e-reader is fast and responsive, and the cloud sync always keeps my exact position in a chapter across all my devices. My favorite characteristic is the business relationship-based document library, which allows me to send PDFs and eBooks to my Kindle via email. Uploaded books fifty-fifty get the same page synchronization as titles purchased through Amazon.

As bully as the Kindle is, I started to utilize it less and less because of the company behind information technology.

As keen equally the Kindle is, I started to utilise it less and less because of the name backside it. Amazon has speedily become the worst tech company, and since Kindles don't support books purchased from other digital storefronts (unless you go through hacky methods of removing DRM), my but pick for supporting authors was to give the richest person on Earth fifty-fifty more of my money. I'grand well aware Amazon is far from the just problematic tech conglomerate, but in my example, Amazon was the easiest one to drib.

Despite endmost many stores over the past few years, Barnes & Noble has connected to produce new Nook readers, nigh recently with the 7.8-inch GlowLight Plus. I've been using that model for the past few weeks, and I'thousand surprised past how well information technology stacks up against Amazon's latest offerings.

Back to Nook

Barnes & Noble currently sells two Nook devices, non counting the 10-inch Android tablet that no one should buy. There's the $120 GlowLight 3, a half dozen-inch backlit basic model, and the 7.eight-inch $200 GlowLight 3 Plus with a special Night Way (more on that later on) and some water resistance. A tablet-sized e-reader sounded interesting, so I picked up the Plus model.

NOOK GLOWLIGHT 3 PLUS

Display	seven.eight" 300-dpi matte E-Ink, scratch and fingerprint-resistant
Storage	8GB internal, no microSD
Connectivity	802.xi b/k/north Wi-Fi, complimentary network admission at B&Due north and AT&T hotspots
Supported files	ePub, PDF, Adobe DRM ePub/PDF, JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP
Battery	Lasts a long time
Water resistance	IPX7
Dimensions	eight.3 x v.9 x 0.iii inches (HxWxD)
Weight	ix.6 oz
Toll	$199.99

Barnes and Noble has largely stuck to the same industrial blueprint I remember from my Nook Simple Touch. The GlowLight iii Plus is a dark grey slab covered in soft-bear upon plastic with physical buttons for turning pages and returning home. Even though they make the Nook look a bit dated compared to some of Amazon'south readers, I've come to greatly capeesh the buttons. I can become forward and back while only holding one side of the Nook, and holding down the home push button toggles the backlight — something that always required at least two taps on my Paperwhite. Speaking of which, the backlight on the Plus can exist inverse to an amber color, which makes reading at night much more enjoyable.

The port situation is a bit strange, though. Even though the GlowLight 3 Plus was only released terminal twelvemonth, it uses microUSB for charging. I don't have to plug in the Nook nearly as often equally my phones or tablets, but information technology's long past time for everything to be Type-C. At that place'due south too a headphone jack at the top, which is bizarrely merely used for listening to B&N's podcasts. Barnes & Noble does sell audiobooks, but they're not accessible on the Nook, and you also can't sideload your own audio files. I'1000 non sure what's worse, having no headphone jack, or having a jack y'all largely can't use.

Once the initial setup process is over, you lot're greeted with the home screen, which shows items from your own library at the pinnacle and recommendations below that. There are also quick-access buttons for the store, the last book you read, and a search. The actual reading feel isn't besides different from Kindles, as in that location are enough of options for changing the text font and formatting. You can also prepare multiple bookmarks and highlight lines of text, just equally with Kindle e-readers.

The Nook's software is more simplistic than the Kindle'due south operating organisation, which yous might see as a proficient or bad affair, depending on how easily y'all become distracted from reading. There's no web browser, so I tin can't check the Wikipedia pages for terms in non-fiction books like I could on my Kindle. Barnes & Noble besides hasn't replicated Amazon's cloud upload feature. Instead, you have to connect the Nook over USB to transfer books, where it appears every bit a wink drive (no special software is needed). My original Nook Simple Bear on allowed you lot to prepare custom wallpapers that announced in sleep mode, simply that feature is sadly no longer present on the GlowLight lineup.

I've also used the Nook Android app a few times when I'm away from my e-reader, and while it's not quite as nicely designed as the Kindle application, it gets the job done. The syncing seems to work about as well every bit Amazon's arrangement, and Android tablets become the aforementioned dual-page layout in landscape mode that the Kindle app offers.

What about the books?

One of the reasons I bought a Kindle in the outset identify was considering it seems to have the largest library of eBooks for sale. Subsequently all, with Amazon existence the market leader in this category, anyone remotely interested in publishing an eBook would go far available on Kindle past default. Much to my surprise, every book I've read over the past few years is also available through Barnes & Noble. Some publishers too appear to have sales on both Amazon and B&Northward simultaneously — I was able to choice up a few Star Trek novels after seeing a tweet about a sale on Amazon.

I don't read a broad multifariousness of books (mostly science-fiction and history/scientific discipline non-fiction), then I took to social media asking people to submit books they've read lately. This way, I could create a better comparison of the books available betwixt Kindle and Nook. The results were a decent mix of non-fiction and fiction, including both brand-new books and classics.

Book	Writer	Kindle	Nook
Mistborn	Brandon Sanderson	Yes	Aye
Leviathan Wakes	James Due south. A. Corey	Yes	Yes
Catching Burn	Suzanne Collins	Yes	Yes
1984	George Orwell	Yes	Yes
The Catcher in The Rye	J.D. Salinger	Yes	Aye
The Kite Runner	Khaled Hosseini	Yes	Yes
El gaucho Martín Fierro	José Henández	Yeah	Yes
Of Mice and Men	John Steinbeck	Yes	Yes
Super Pumped	Mike Isaac	Yes	Yeah
Bullshit Jobs	David Graeber	Yes	Yep
Misbehaving	Richard H. Thaler	Yes	Yes
Time of Contempt	Andrzej Sapkowski	Yeah	Yep
The 2020 Commission Report	Jeffrey Lewis	Yep	Aye
Fauna Farm	George Orwell	Aye	Yes
Becoming	Michelle Obama	Yes	Yes
Set Player Ii	Ernest Cline	Yes	Yes
Remote: Office Not Required	Jason Fried	Yes	Yeah
Plugged	Eoin Colfer	Yes	Yeah
Rage	Bob Woodward	Yep	Yes
Jason and Marceline	Jerry Spinelli	Yep	Yes
Your Life in My Hands	Rachel Clarke	Yep	Yep
Samsung Rising	Geoffrey Cain	Yes	Yes
Empire of Silence	Christopher Ruocchio	Yes	Yes
Time and Again	Jack Finney	Aye	Yes
The Fractal Prince	Hannu Rajaniemi	Yes	Yes
Pandora's Star	Peter F. Hamilton	Yes	Yes
Semiosis	Sue Burke	Yes	Yeah
Earth Abides	George R. Stewart	Yes	Yes
Judas Unchained	Peter F. Hamilton	Yes	Yes
The Causal Angel	Hannu Rajaniemi	Aye	Yes
Coalescent	Stephen Baxter	Aye	Yeah
The Urban center in the Middle of the Night	Charlie Jane Anders	Aye	Yes

Again, much to my surprise, every single book submitted to me was available every bit an eBook at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The prices were usually similar, likewise — new releases typically go for $14.99, and regular price for older books is around $9.99. At that place are undoubtedly some books that are withal sectional to ane service or the other, but this at least shows that the selection should be roughly like beyond both platforms.

Besides the born store, you can also sideload your own books in ePub or PDF format. I've installed a few of my own DRM-gratuitous books, and while the ePub books worked perfectly, I did discover two small issues with PDFs. The Nook seems to slow down when viewing PDFs with extremely loftier-resolution images (I concluded upwardly freezing it while trying to read a high-res comic book), and at that place'south no choice to rotate PDFs. If you want to read something oriented for landscape viewing, you'll have to rotate the file itself earlier copying information technology to the Nook.

Surprisingly strong competition

Later using my GlowLight 3 for a few weeks, I'chiliad impressed by how much of a fight it puts upwardly confronting Amazon'southward e-readers. The GlowLight 3 does lack some of the features I liked on my Kindle Paperwhite, merely the cadre reading experience is more or less the same. The book option also seems to be very similar, which I wasn't expecting at all.

If you're looking to become an e-reader, and you don't want a Kindle for any reason, I definitely recommend picking upwardly a Nook. It'south rare that the underdog in a product category is then close in features with the market place leader, but unless you dearest audiobooks, or you follow indie authors that don't publish on other platforms, you're non really losing annihilation by switching to a Nook.