Barnes and Noble have announced that they are suspending the service of older Nook e-readers. In April 2024, B&N will stop services for the Nook Simple Touch, Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight and the Nook Glowlight. In June 2024, users can no longer connect to the Barnes and Noble Bookstore to buy digital content. They also won’t be able to register new accounts or log in to existing accounts. This is a severe blow to people who loved these older e-readers and enjoyed buying ebooks.
The only way these older e-readers will be valuable is to read ebooks already downloaded to the device or sideload in your own EPUB files. Side-loading is a contentious issue with these readers because they only have a certain amount of storage for side-loaded ebooks is available, often just 2GB. The maximum available storage for side-loaded content was done to promote buying comics, graphic novels, manga and books from the B&N store to generate more revenue.
Barnes and Noble want people to upgrade to newer Nook e-readers. They have refreshed their entire lineup in the past year, and are all perfect. The Nook Glowlight 4 Plus has audiobook support via Bluetooth, and users can buy audiobooks from the store. They all have manual page-turn buttons and are among the best ebook readers the company has ever released.
To make the upgrade more palpable for users wanting to upgrade from the Simple Touch line, B&N is willing to give you a coupon code for buying a modern unit. All you need to do is fill out this form, and they will credit your B&N account with credit, and this can be used to subsidize a new purchase. I would also recommend that nobody buy these old e-readers on eBay or other third-party marketplaces; you won’t even be able to activate them if you do.
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.
