Most people that use ereaders to read ebooks seem to think that Nooks aren’t very good and they would never consider buying one.
There was a time when Nooks were seen as a good alternative to Kindles, and there was a brief time when Nooks were actually kind of popular (back in the early days).
Now the general consensus is Nooks are trash and they aren’t worth buying. Only people who are big fans of Barnes and Noble seem to purchase them, and even ardent Nook supporters are disappointed with how B&N handles Nooks and how Nooks are treated as an afterthought in stores.
Look around online and you’ll see how unpopular Nooks are in 2025. The Nook subreddit only has 6k members. By comparison, the Kindle subreddit has 419k members, and the Kobo subreddit has 83k members.
It’s gotten to the point where I’m not even sure why Nooks are hated so much. They really aren’t that bad. The E Ink screen looks great. They’re one of the few options left with page buttons on both sides of the screen. And because of the wider bezels they’re comfortable to hold.
Are Nooks so disliked because of their software? It’s not as customizable as most, and B&N puts little effort into adding new features and improving it, but the software is still adequate and usable. Nooks only support two ebooks formats, EPUB and PDF, but that still covers a lot of ground.
Is it the fact that Nook books are locked to B&N and can’t be read on non-Nook devices and apps? Is it because the DRM can’t be removed from Nook books? That exact same scenario hasn’t stopped Apple from being able to build up a successful ebook business, and they don’t even sell dedicated ereaders like Nooks.
I think part of the problem is the fact that most of the people that work for Barnes and Noble don’t respect or like Nooks. They look down on them like they’re inferior to paper books, and that attitude has trickled down to customers and it has affected the overall development of Nooks.
Could B&N do something to make Nooks popular again? What if they put more effort into improving the software? Would that even matter at this point?
I like my Nooks but I asked around before I bought them and people said a few things. They brought up the software being limited (no further explanation). The lack of true boldness and recently the removal of line thickness choices and some font. The removal of hyphens (this is a main dislike of Nooks to some). The permanent (unless you go out of your way to fix) storage partition of sideloaded books on the Glow4. The soft touch plastic.
Oddly no one brought up the DRM issue until after I bought one. All you needed to do is find the old apk as its been removed from microsoft app store and install. It still works for now if you want to buy books from B&N. Once it no longer works I won’t shop B&N but I’ll continue to use my nooks.
The only issue that bothered me at all was the storage partition. If can pay for X amount of something do not tell me I cant have the full amount. But the fix was already out by the time I got mine and it’s not too complex. All the other things to me were unimportant to what I wanted the thing to do. And it does what I want it to do for me perfectly well.
Also when I first got an e-reader I only knew of Kindles and Nooks. For as much as Kobos get pushed to people (feels like a cult of kobo lovers and a cult of nook haters at times) I’d never heard of them at all until I began my search. The people around me only used those two brands themselves so that’s all I knew existed. Now I know of the offshore brands too.
5-8 years ago is when I last visited a B&N and it had the Nook display front and center as you walk in. That store had been there for many years at that point and the Nook location was still the same as when it opened. The store remains open today but given how often people mention B&N not caring about the Nook brand I wouldn’t be surprised if they moved the displays to where they have movies or records so they can put more tables of some best seller or local(ish) author.
I actually like the Nooks. We currently have one in the family. The only thing I don’t like about them– and that’s why I use a Kindle– is the lack of true bold options.
Nook ereaders had / have pretty good hardware compared to the competition, and they were quite popular in my country. Then GDPR came which means they can’t legally steal Europeans’ data anymore, so they pulled out of the whole continent. I honestly can’t believe it was worth leaving an entire market of hundreds of millions of people over that.
Since then they’ve just kept shooting themselves in the foot and they still make very weird decisions so I say let them just die out and disappear, we already have a lot of evil companies to deal with.
Nooks have always been my favorite ereaders. Kobo is second. Kindles last. But I haven’t bought a Nookbook in years.