Nook GlowLight 4 review
Our Verdict
The Nook GlowLight iv is a slight comeback on its predecessor, offering smoother performance and a solid reading experience. Nigh everything else most the device ranges from "underwhelming" to "disastrous," though.
For
- Solid reading experience
- Sleek, lightweight blueprint
- Fewer distractions than Kindle
Against
- Miserable sideloading feel
- Fewer extra features than competitors
- No significant upgrades since GlowLight 3
Tom'due south Guide Verdict
The Nook GlowLight 4 is a slight improvement on its predecessor, offering smoother performance and a solid reading experience. Almost everything else nearly the device ranges from "underwhelming" to "disastrous," though.
Pros
- +
Solid reading experience
- +
Sleek, lightweight pattern
- +
Fewer distractions than Kindle
Cons
- -
Miserable sideloading feel
- -
Fewer extra features than competitors
- -
No pregnant upgrades since GlowLight 3
Nook GlowLight 4 review: Specs
Price: $140
Display size: 6 inches
Resolution (points-per-inch): 300
Storage: 32 GB
Battery life: Approximately one calendar month
Dimensions: 6.two x 4.8 x 0.2 inches
Weight: half dozen.0 ounces
Ports: USB-C
Wireless charging: No
Extras: Color temperature, Barnes & Noble in-shop perks
I'thousand not exactly certain who the target audition is for the Nook GlowLight iv. I think, mayhap, it's people like me, who have stubbornly hung onto their original Nooks or Nook Simple Touches for the last ten-plus years, but who won't become an Amazon Kindle out of sheer stubbornness. Beyond that, I'm having trouble coming up with a large demographic.
Think nigh it. There'southward no reason for Nook GlowLight 3 owners to upgrade, since the benefits over the previous model are marginal. In that location's no reason for Kindle or Kobo owners to switch, since the GlowLight iv is a weaker device overall. There'due south no reason for coincidental readers to buy i, since their smartphone or tablet can fulfill the same role nearly besides. Fifty-fifty if you're dead-set on buying an e-reader for the first time, in that location'south no particular benefit that the Nook tin can offering over its two closest competitors.
The all-time affair I can say about the Nook GlowLight 4 is that if you know exactly what you want to read and successfully load it onto your device, you'll exist able to read information technology in peace for equally long equally yous similar. As a lark-free fashion to read books without straining your eyes, the GlowLight 4 succeeds. That's reason plenty to requite it at least a balmy recommendation.
But at that place'due south so much that Barnes & Noble needed to ready from the GlowLight 3, and so trivial that actually got done. If y'all need to supplant an old Nook and can't breadbasket the thought of losing your library, this Nook GlowLight 4 review will prove it'due south a fine device. Otherwise, though, you'd be much happier with one of the best Kindles or a Kobo.
Nook GlowLight 4 review: Cost and availability
If you determine to buy a Nook GlowLight 4, yous at least won't have to put much idea into which version to purchase. There's one configuration, which comes with a 6-inch e-ink screen, 32 GB storage and a USB-C charging port. It costs $150, but Barnes & Noble members can salve ten%, knocking the price downwards to $135.
Barnes & Noble also sells the Nook 10" HD Tablet Designed with Lenovo for $130, but this is a more traditional LCD screen tablet. Information technology's non an e-reader.
Nook GlowLight iv review: Design
If you've used an e-reader anytime in the last decade, the Nook GlowLight 4 should feel pretty intuitive. Information technology's a thin rectangular device, about the size of a mass-market place paperback, but much lighter and thinner. At 6.2 ten iv.8 x 0.2 inches and half-dozen ounces, it's small enough to stash in nearly any bag, and light plenty to hold for hours while you read.
Like well-nigh dedicated eastward-readers, the GlowLight 4 eschews the LCD screens common to smartphones, tablets and computers, opting instead for an e-ink display. If yous've never used an e-ink device earlier, information technology's tailor-made for immersive reading. A static eastward-ink display doesn't consume any free energy. As such, e-readers tin can last an extremely long time on a single charge (up to a calendar month, in the GlowLight 4'south case), and don't tire your eyes out as quickly every bit LCDs, which refresh dozens of times per second.
One major advantage of the GlowLight 4 over comparably priced Kindle and Kobo devices is its physical page-plough buttons. While you need to buy super-premium Kindle and Kobo models ($180 and up) to get physical buttons, the GlowLight iv includes them by default. Furthermore, you get these buttons on either side of the screen, unlike Kindle and Kobo, which put both physical buttons off to one side. The GlowLight 4 has a meliorate, more than naturalistic layout, and the buttons make a big divergence, especially since it means your screen won't exist covered in fingerprints.
Otherwise, the GlowLight 4 looks like a traditional e-reader. Information technology has a power button on top, a USB-C charging port on the bottom, a "Nook" logo on the back and not much else. The only large difference from the GlowLight iii is that the GlowLight 4'south chassis is slightly smaller, and the page-plow buttons are on the edges of the bezel rather than the centre.
Nook GlowLight 4 review: Interface
There are two main components to the Nook Glowlight iv's interface: the reading experience, and what I'll call "everything else" — settings, lighting, ownership new books and then forth. Mostly speaking, the GlowLight 4's reading experience is fantabulous, while "everything else" ranges from "fine" to "a nightmare."
To give credit where it's due, I actually prefer the GlowLight 4's core reading experience to that of the Kindle. Unlike the Kindle, which crams its books full of Goodreads and social media functionality (Editor's Note: which you tin can spend fourth dimension disabling, if you're similar the states), Nook books are tranquility. In that location's naught between you and the printed discussion. You simply buy or borrow a volume, open up it up, and read until you no longer feel like reading. I also accept to give Barnes & Noble credit for solving the terrible screen flashing and interminable load times from the GlowLight 3. The GlowLight 4, like whatsoever adept eastward-reader, does precisely one thing, and does so very well.
The reading interface is more often than not good every bit well. When yous're in a book, you can tap the screen to leap to distant pages, or to select a particular chapter. You can also alter font size, font style, margins, line spacing and justification. You can wait for keywords, add bookmarks, highlight and make notes.
You tin can accommodate the titular GlowLight with ii quick bill of fare taps, and you tin can also activate a helpful Night Manner. This shifts the Nook'southward color temperature over the form of the 24-hour interval, from absurd blues in the morning, to warm oranges at dark. This might help you sleep better if you read right before bed; otherwise, it'southward easy enough to turn off.
I take only 2 complaints hither. The first is that Amazon lets you sideload your own fonts to the Kindle; while the Nook, on the other paw, offers vii fonts, and that's all y'all'll get, unless y'all root the device. The GlowLight feature is also less precise than I'd like, since y'all take to drag a slider around rather than specifying discrete levels. You can't relieve your favorite lighting levels, and there'southward no adaptive brightness. Both of these were issues last fourth dimension effectually, and Barnes & Noble had plenty of time to address them.
Across that, you can organize your books on the Library screen, play with display options in Settings, read snippets of recommended books in Readouts, or Search for books, both in your library and in the Barnes & Noble digital storefront.
Nook Glowlight 4 review: Content
Buying new books is unproblematic enough. You lot simply open the store, discover the volume y'all want (y'all tin can search, browse, or go individualized recommendations) and pay for it via credit card or gift carte. New books download to your device automatically, and with 32 GB storage, you can store tens of thousands of books. (I'thousand not exactly certain why Barnes & Noble upped the storage from 8 GB to 32 GB, as mainstream volume files rarely exceed x MB, but more storage is never a bad matter.)
While Barnes & Noble'southward store isn't quite as rich as Amazon's, you'll be able to observe what you need, provided that yous like books that have been in print sometime in the last 20 years or then. Barnes & Noble advertises that it has more than 4.5 meg books on offer, from classics to New York Times bestsellers, and I've never had too much trouble finding what I needed to read, from '50s sci-fi to brand-new lit fic. You can fifty-fifty driblet into a Barnes & Noble shop and read pretty much anything for as long equally you stay, much like picking a book up off the shelf and sitting with it for an hour or 2.
However, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the procedure of sideloading content to a Nook. Dorsum when the Nook debuted, its open EPUB file format was a large benefaction over the Kindle, with its walled-garden MOBI files. EPUB compatibility was particularly helpful for downloading from local libraries, something that the Kindle didn't offer at all.
Now, however, the tables have turned. While the Nook continues to rely on blowsy Adobe Digital Editions engineering science and side-loading via USB cables, Amazon has partnered with library programs to allow wireless loans. Fifty-fifty the otherwise-unremarkable Kobo has surpassed the Nook, equally you lot can browse Overdrive library books right from a Kobo device.
Conversely, trying to borrow library books on the GlowLight 4 was somehow — confronting all conceivable odds — even worse than trying to infringe them on the GlowLight 3. Last fourth dimension around, the Nook refused to recognize that my library loans were valid; this time, I could not get my computer to recognize the Nook at all.
If you run into trouble trying to sideload books, Barnes & Noble offers outdated troubleshooting communication that blames Adobe; Adobe offers outdated troubleshooting communication that blames Barnes & Noble. Neither visitor has lifted a finger to ameliorate the process in the last few years. Without rehashing the whole miserable process, information technology took full resets of both the GlowLight four and Adobe Digital Editions before they started playing nicely together. Even and then, the Nook would notwithstanding sometimes insist that I wasn't ejecting the device properly, so it had to delete all of my sideloaded files in retaliation.
As I told another Tom'due south Guide editor after I wasted a whole morning time on this process, "I oasis't bought a concrete book in over a decade, but nonsense similar this is enough to make me go back."
Nook GlowLight 4 review: Battery life
One area where the Nook GlowLight iv fully lives upwards to its potential is in the battery life department. Barnes & Noble claims that the device tin last upwards to a month on a single charge. This is patently dependent on a ton of different factors, such as your reading speed, your lighting options, your Wi-Fi connectivity and so forth. Simply the bottom line is that you won't have to charge the device very often. That's a good affair, considering that it's not uncommon for serious readers to plant themselves in front of a book for hours and hours at a fourth dimension.
The simply metric I can offer is that when I first received the GlowLight 4, I charged it to 100%. A week later on, after reading infrequently with the light at one-half-force and the Wi-Fi off, I brought it down to about 75% charge. That's in line with Barnes & Noble's gauge, although I imagine information technology will first draining faster one time I sit down for a marathon session.
Nook GlowLight 4 review: Verdict
When I reviewed the Nook GlowLight 3, the iii issues that drove me up the wall were the tiresome load times, the incessant screen flashing and the near-impossibility of sideloading content. Barnes & Noble has stock-still the outset 2 issues, while keeping the distraction-free reading experience intact. All the same, sideloading is as miserable as ever, and that's a big problem when an open up file format is your biggest advantage over the competition.
Over the past few years, both Kindle and Kobo have fabricated peachy strides in improving the user feel, with features such as waterproofing, adaptive brightness and a multifariousness of different hardware options at unlike prices. This Nook GlowLight four review shows that this model doesn't take any of those things. It'southward the mildest possible upgrade for an east-reader that needed a pregnant overhaul — and it needed that significant overhaul three years ago.
If yous're like me, and merely can't allow go of your hard-won Barnes & Noble ebook library, I'll begrudgingly recommend the GlowLight iv. It could have been much worse. Merely I'd actually similar to run across Barnes & Noble give its venerable old east-reader a top-to-bottom refresh before the company has to bow out of the hardware game forever.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/nook-glowlight-4
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