The Nook GlowLight from Barnes and Noble offers a good reading experience for ebooks with its high resolution, evenly frontlit screen, but it lacks a lot of advanced features found on competing brands of ebook readers.
Kindle and Kobo ereaders, for instance, have web browsers for light web reading and for downloading ebooks from various websites online. E Ink web browsers generally don’t work great but they come in handy sometimes.
The Nook GlowLight doesn’t officially have a web browser, but like the Nook Touch and Nook Touch with GlowLight before it, there’s a hidden web browser that can be accessed if you know the special trick. The browser doesn’t work very well and is very limited but it does function somewhat if you really need to use it for something.
Here’s the steps to access the hidden web browser on the Nook GlowLight:
- Tap the top of the screen to bring up the menu bar.
- Tap the upper right to open the quick settings menu.
- Tap All Settings.
- Select Social from the list.
- Select Link to Facebook, Twitter, and Google.
- Select to Link Your Account under Google.
- Tap the link for Need Help? under the sign in box.
- Select the link at the bottom left of the page for Google Home and that will take you to the Google search homepage where you can type searches in the search box.
Again, the web browser doesn’t work very well, and there are no features to speak of (not even a back button) and it doesn’t work for downloading ebooks (I tried) but it’s there if you really need it.
I am not sure what the advantage of a web browser on a e-reader. I know the kindle has one but I don’t think it works all that well either. The few times I tried it, it was extremely slow and clunky. The e-readers are not really designed for web browsing so I don’t think it is really fair to any of the e-readers to consider it a feature, unless it is specifically advertising it as a feature.
Web reading is just as important to some people as ebook reading. I don’t think it’s fair to segregate reading in such a way. I think that ereaders should be able to handle all forms of reading, not just ebooks. E Ink can handle playing videos surprisingly well so it should be able to handle web browsing without a problem. It’s just that no one ever puts any time into making web browsers better on E Ink because their focus is on selling ebooks. The browser on the Sony PRS-T1 and T2 is actually quite functional. It works great for checking out ebooks from the library right from the device itself. The Kindle’s article mode feature comes in quite handy as well, but I agree using the browser can be quite clunky at times. I wish they’d put a little more effort into optimizing it for E Ink.
The Sony T1 browser works *very* well.
I’ve used it with free WiFi at doctors’ offices and hospitals to check email and news. I have also used it to d/l ebooks from several websites.
It’s not by itself a reason to buy an eink reader but in a close matchup, it can tilt the purchase decision.
Could you imagine Sony’s E Ink web browser on their 13.3″ screen? That would be pretty sweet.
In Europe (Denmark and Holland to be specific) streaming of ebooks is becoming popular; especially, when borrowing from libraries and other streaming services and that does not work with e-ink readers, which is really annoying. Therefore, most people read ebooks on tablets and no on cares about e-ink devices. I am still waiting for a great 7 inch e-ink device, which works well with pdf’s, web, and allows one to download reading apps.
Onyx has demo’ed one.
The Onyx T68 runs Android 4.x on an Aura-esque frontlit 6.8in HD screen. It will ship open to android installs.
I’m keeping an eye on it to see what the reviews say, if it lives up to that promise of and sink tablet.
I hope Onyx can pull it off, but I am a bit skeptical based on seeing the videos of their Android ereaders and phones. They always seem like they aren’t responding well to touches, and seem slow and clunky. That last video with Charbax made them look pretty bad. The CEO was saying the products were finished and ready to go but they weren’t working well at all whenever Charbax tried to use them.
Which is why I’m going to wait on the reviews. 🙂
I like the promise but if they want my cash they need to deliver.