NOOK Simple Touch with Glowlight Review

The NOOK Simple Touch with Glowlight from Barnes & Noble offers a 6" E Ink display with new technology that allows you to read in the dark--and it only weighs 7 ounces! Kevin Pereira and Matt Mira take a look at the eReader for Gadget Pr0n.

What You Need To Know

• The NOOK Simple Touch with Glowlight has pretty much the same design as the Nook Simple Touch from last year, other than the gray border.
• It also weighs a little less.
• The back is concaved so it's easy to get a good grip on it.
• This is a touchscreen device but there are also control buttons on the front so you get the best of both worlds.
• The side features a micro SD slot to expand the 2 GB of internal storage.
• The power button is on top and below the screen is the home button, which also activates the Glowlight.
• The 6" E Ink display has an 800x600 resolution, which is pretty standard.
• One difference is the addition of a screen protector, which is good for durability but we felt like this affected the contrast a little bit.
• Even though reading on the NOOK was a pleasant experience, we do think E Ink is definitely showing its age.
• The Glowlight was a welcome addition.
• It works through the 8 LED lights at the top of the screen with software that evenly distributes the light across the display.
• All you have to do is hold the home button for about 2 seconds to turn it on and off.
• You can adjust the brightness through a pop up window.
• The light isn't perfectly distributed across the screen, and you can see it fading a little out towards the bottom.
• This certainly allows anyone to read in the dark.
• You don't even need the Glowlight to be set at 100%; we used it at 20% the whole time and it was perfect.
• The Android software was fantastic and we prefer it over the Kindle software.
• Everything was really snappy for an E Ink interface, including typing on the touchscreen.
• The keyboard is very responsive and navigating through the store is also really easy.
• You can brose through Barnes and Noble's Top 100, the New York Times bestsellers list and others to find a good book to read.
• Barnes & Noble says the battery lasts about two months without the Glowlight with about 30 minutes of reading per day.
• With the Glowlight on, the battery life is one month.
• We used the NOOK for a good amount of time and used only 2% of the battery, so it seems solid.

Price

• $139

Rating

• 4.5 Seals of Approval out of 5. (How do we rate gadgets?)
• The NOOK Simple with Glowlight is the perfect size for an eReader.
• The design is great and the Glowlight feature makes a huge difference.
• It's $40 more than the Kindle Touch, so if you're already a Kindle user, we recommend sticking with it, unless the Glowlight is something you need to have.
• If you're in the market for your first eReader, then the NOOK Simple with Glowlight is a great option.

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