This past week Barnes and Noble issued an update for the Nook GlowLight to improve the on-board shopping experience and to add a few new features.
Now this week Barnes and Noble is running a sale on the Nook GlowLight to try and get it out into more people’s hands.
The Nook GlowLight normally sells for $119, but until April 13th it is marked down to $99 both online and in B&N retail stores. Or if the newer Nook isn’t doing it for you, you can still get a regular Nook Simple Touch from Best Buy on clearance for $49.
The Nook GlowLight has a 6-inch 1024 x 758 resolution screen. It uses a Pearl display from E Ink, not the newer Carta screens—so far those are only on two devices, the Kindle Paperwhite 2 and Tolino Vision.
The GlowLight gets its name from the frontlight that illuminates the screen, which turned out much clearer and more evenly-lit than the first gen model. Other specs include an infrared touchscreen, 800 MHz processor, Wi-Fi, 2.5GB of usable internal storage space (only 500MB for sideloaded content, though), and the battery can last up to 8 weeks. Of course this particular model is notorious for the lack of a memory card slot.
One thing that should be avoided when purchasing a Nook GlowLight, it seems, is B&N’s official Clip Cover. I happened to notice that they are on sale this week too, but the reviews are dreadful. There are three colors. Over a combined 69 reviews, 65 are 1 star reviews. Yikes! I can’t remember ever seeing that high of a percentage of negative feedback for a cover before. This neoprene case for the Nook GlowLight is rated much better, but it’s only sold in stores for some reason…
I’ve never quite understood the concern about “only 500MB for sideloaded content.” This is a pure e-reader. It doesn’t do video, it doesn’t do music, it doesn’t do apps. And since it doesn’t have an SD slot, rooting the Nook Glow to do any of that stuff isn’t really in the cards.
So… about all that’s going to get sideloaded is e-books. Most of my e-books seem to run 200KB or so, although there’s a *lot* of variability. Even if we figure 500KB each, that’s a thousand sideloaded e-books. How many does a person need?
Well normally when one thinks of an ereading device, they tend to support more than just ebooks. Anything like comics or PDFs is going to fill that space with only like 10 titles, which is truly pathetic when you think about it. But then again the Nook is awful for PDFs and comics anyway so I guess it doesn’t really matter much, like you say.
I only bought my GlowNook because it was the first e-reader with a built in light. I now have last year’s Kindle PaperWhite and use it all the time. The lighted screen for night reading is MUCH clearer than the GlowNook. But GlowNook is a much cuter name than Kindle PaperWhite LOL
I just keep a few books (under 200) on my reader, they slow down with more added. I just store my extra in Calibre for quick dl’s whenever needed.