Practically nobody seems to care about Nooks these days, but I wonder if that could change if B&N released something new and interesting for a change, instead of just re-releasing the same general devices over and over again.
At the very least, B&N should release a new 6″ Nook at some point in 2025. Their current 6″ Nook was released in 2021, during mid-December, which made no sense at all. Then in 2022 they released a more basic version called the Nook 4e, but they discontinued that model without a replacement last year, although it can still be purchased on Amazon for $69 refurbished.
The last Nook ereader to hit stores was the 7.8″ Nook Glowlight 4 Plus. It was released in August of 2023. B&N has a habit of releasing new Nooks about every two years so that’s another indication a new model should be forthcoming in 2025.
So far B&N is the only ereader company that hasn’t jumped on the 10″ eNote bandwagon or the color E Ink bandwagon. A Nook Color seems like the most obvious next step at this point, but with B&N you never know. They have their Nook Lenovo tablets for color content so maybe they think color E Ink is too much of a niche product.
A lot of people that use Nooks really like the hardware with the page buttons on each side of the screen, and there aren’t any Kobos or Kindles with a similar design so that helps them stand out, but it’s the software that really holds Nooks back.
I can’t help but think Nooks would be more popular if B&N went the open Android route like Onyx and Bigme, but that would require more software development on B&N’s part, and that seems to be one of the main sticking points, as B&N has a history of doing as little as possible when it comes to Nook software.
If B&N would just allow customers to download purchased ebooks in Adobe DRM format like Kobo does more people would be interested in Nooks overnight. And if they put some effort into refining the Nook software and making it a bit more customizable and user-friendly they’d stand a good chance of turning things around and making Nooks popular again—but that’s probably never going to happen. We can hope, though…
I’ve been a NOOK stalwart. I like the hardware (I like the side buttons), soft-touch finish and find the 8” screen on the GlowLight 4 Plus an ideal reading screen for me. I also live in the U.S. and visit my local B&N, so my membership helps my physical book purchases get rewards to apply towards ebook sale purchases. It works and the setup is pretty great for me, even if it’s a niche customer case.
I agree that their software holds them back. It is stuck in the early 2010’s. Hardly any customization choices, no dark mode, covers don’t share on sleep screen, slow overall. I suspect it’s built on an ancient code base and they don’t have resources to make a large update.
And perhaps a great example: about six months ago, some weird data started showing on the footer when you choose to display the time left in chapter. Some chatter on this on the subreddit. It adds a “WC” with numbers and “PT” with more. Could mean word count? Could be word count left in the “part”? It honestly looks like a QC miss for a firmware update. It has been there for six+ months! It’s like they don’t care about the ereader experience for users.
That along with my feelings of doing a horrible job of marketing these devices, an aging demographic who are the majority of the small slice of NOOK users, and a literal skeleton crew at B&N working on NOOK things has made me, someone who wants to support and root for them, start to pivot away and use my Kobo more.
I can’t see them allowing Adobe DRM download. They once allowed ebook download from their site, and then they took it away, WITH NO ADVANCE WARNING!
Which drove me away. Previously, while it was possible to easily download and remove DRM from Nook books, I was a good customer. But once I could no longer easily access my purchased content to remove DRM, that was it. I never bought another ebook from them. Luckily, all of my purchased content was safe, and still accessible in Calibre to me today.
As for their hardware, I started with a Nook WiFi, but the reader experience just wasn’t up to par. The first thing to irritate the heck out of me was that I had to navigate to a different place on the device to access free content. This meant that freebies I might’ve downloaded from an author website were NOT grouped with purchased content by the same author. That was a NOPE from me. I went to a Sony 950, and from there to a Kobo device and never looked back.
In general, there’s just been nothing to make me want to go back to a Nook. I tried one of their Android tablet devices many years ago, I think it was the Nook HD+. However, it was slow as molasses and I sold it on. For e-ink, I suppose some might want buttons or a larger screen, but I already have that with my Kobo Sage and Forma, plus more, like Dropbox/Google Drive access and Overdrive access.
They would have to do something truly exciting for me to consider buying their hardware again. And their past track record is anything BUT exciting … they barely keep up on hardware and their software dates back to 2010.
I started with the first Nook and loved it. I built my Nook library into a large one. Their software started losing the quality it had at the start. Instead of improving – it just kept getting worse. Being determined to stick with BN in order to stay away from Kindles I kept purchasing each new device they came out with only to get rid of each because of the frustration with the software issues – freezing, saying the device was too cold, messages that it couldn’t complete request to open book try again later. I really liked the little pink Nook but finally gave up due to freezing and the page turn buttons acting erratically. I sent the Nook to be recycled and requested BN to delete my account. I never wanted to deal with Calibre and I knew if I kept my BN account and books I would just keep buying each new Nook hoping for a good experience and then being disappointed for the millionth time. I switched to Kobo and Pocketbook and love them. I will never go back to Nook no matter what they do going forward. In my opinion, BN does not care about their e-ink devices nor their customers. They started out at the front of the pack and then did everything with each bad business decision to anger their customers and get themselves scratched from the race. They are so behind Kobo and Kindle I don’t think they can ever catch up let alone surpass.