Barnes & Noble is the largest bookseller in the United States. The company has been selling NOOK-branded e-readers since 2010 and continues to sell them today. The current generation NOOK Glowlight 4, NOOK Glowlight 4 Plus, and the NOOK 9 by Lenovo tablet are all on sale online and in retail stores for Mother’s Day.
The NOOK Glowlight 4 is their entry-level e-reader, released in 2021. It features a 6-inch E INK Carta HD display with a resolution of 1072×1404 and 300 PPI. The screen is not flush with the bezel but sunken. An all-new screen protector has been installed on the factory level, which helps protect the plastic e-paper display. It has warm and cool lighting to read at night. Underneath the hood is an Allwinner B300 quad-core 1.5 GHZ CPU processor, 2GB of RAM, and 32GB of internal storage. You cannot listen to audiobooks on this model; you can only listen to e-books, manga, and other digital content. The regular price is $149, but it is on sale for $129.99.
The NOOK Glowlight 4 Plus also came out in 2021. It features a 7.8-inch E INK Carta HD e-paper display with a 1,404 x 1,872 resolution and 300 PPI. The screen is flush with the bezel and protected by a layer of glass. A matte screen protector was installed at the factory; this is used to reduce glare from overhead lighting or the sun. Typically, an e-reader with a glass screen tends to reflect light. It has both warm and cool lighting to read during the night. Underneath the hood is an Allwinner B300 1.8 GHZ quad-core processor with 2GB of LP-DDR4x RAM and 32GB of internal storage; no SD card will increase it further. This was the first NOOK E INK device to have audiobook support via Bluetooth. The everyday price is $199.99, and it is on sale for a limited time for $179.99.
The NOOK Tablet 9 is their second device, made with Lenovo. This tablet is perfect for US residents who already do business with the bookseller since all prior purchases made in their apps, e-readers or tablets will automatically be synced to this new model. This provides more value than all of the Fire Tablets since it has Dolby Audio and full access to the Google Play Store. What are the major selling points of Lenovo’s NOOK Tablet 9? It has a large 9-inch display, dual speakers, Dolby Audio, Grayscale, Chromatic & Immersive reading modes, TÜV Rhineland-certified eye protection, and Android 13 with Google Play. The regular price is $149.99, the Mothers Day sale is $129.99. If you prefer the new Frost Blue variant of the tablet, it has the same sale price.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.