The Verge - Barnes & Noble's new Nook Simple Touch adds 'GlowLight' for better night time reading

Nook Simple Touch Glowlight out in the UK for £109, HD and HD+ tablets coming November

2012-10-29T06:15:50Z

Barnes & Noble has finally launched its first Nook e-readers in the UK. The Nook Simple Touch and Nook Simple Touch Glowlight (no "with" for the UK version, apparently) are on sale now for £79 ($127) and £109 ($175), respectively, at a variety of retailers. We previously heard that the Nook products would be available at stores including John Lewis, Argos, and Blackwell's, and that list has expanded to take in supermarkets Waitrose, Asda, and Sainsbury's.

The e-readers' release has been met with the launch of the UK-specific Nook site at uk.nook.com. For UK residents more interested in Barnes & Noble's new tablets, you can also pre-order a 7-inch Nook HD for £159 ($256) or a 9-inch Nook HD+ for £229 ($368) now. Both tablets will be...

Barnes & Noble Nook with GlowLight pre-orders shipping now, in-store availability 'limited' due to demand

2012-04-24T18:00:59Z

Early adopters of Barnes & Noble's new Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight, are getting an unexpected surprise this week: we'd heard the device would be available in "early May," but the company let us know it's started shipping units early to some customers who pre-ordered the device. Thanks to "very strong pre-order demand," though, not everyone's getting their device early, and if you didn't pre-order you may have a bit of a wait on your hands. Pre-orders will be shipping over the course of the next month, and orders from today on are shipped as the company gets more availability. If you're itching for a light-up ebook reader, your best bet will likely be to go to a Barnes & Noble store, but apparently quantities are limited there as...

Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight review

2012-04-24T18:00:25Z

Odds are, if I'm reading a book I'm doing it in bed. At night. In the dark. That's not so great for ebook readers, which (like a paper book) require a light in order to be seen. I've been asking ebook manufacturers why they wouldn't add lights to their devices for some time, and now Barnes & Noble has done it.

The Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight is a virtually unchanged version of last year's model, but the company added a glowing white light that makes the screen readable in darker environments. It's not as bright and painful to look at as a lit-up LCD, nor as kludgy as an ebook reader with a light attachment, and at $139 it's no more expensive than the ad-free Kindle Touch. Is the new Nook worth an upgrade over last year's model? Is...

Nooks with E Ink get seasonal sales boost in summer, tablet bundles doing well

2012-04-12T20:30:18Z

The timing of the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight — out intentionally just before Mother's Day and before summer — is no coincidence. That's of course no surprise, as product are meticulously planned at all stages of its cycle, from research and development to engineering to sales and marketing. But there's a particular boost in E Ink interest just in time for beach weather, according to Barnes & Noble's President of Digital Devices Jamie Iannone. He's been a figure in Nook's development since joining the company in 2009 following a stint at eBay.

"I think [this past] holiday, we had very good growth in E Ink," he told us today at the Nook event, "but it wasn't as explosive as we thought it would be. There was a lot of press around...

New Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight coming early May for $139 (hands-on video)

2012-04-12T20:30:05Z

It was almost a complete surprise, barring some leaked early promotional material yesterday. Today, Barnes & Noble has officially announced the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight, for all the insomniacs to read at night, in bed, without disturbing loved ones. (As B&N noted in a survey it recently conducted, more than 50 percent said they would read more if it didn't affect their partner's sleep.)

The Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight (official name) is nearly identical to the earlier model — same 6-inch E Ink Pearl touchscreen display, same internals, same size and chassis — but is actually hair lighter, at 6.95 ounces vs. 7.48 ounces. And, of course, the GlowLight. Barnes & Noble calls it a patent pending technology that consists of...

New Nook Simple Touch with 'GlowLight' front-lit screen revealed by store signage

2012-04-11T18:04:01Z

We heard a few days ago that Amazon was readying a Kindle with a front-lit, E ink screen — now it appears that Barnes & Noble is ready to do the same thing with the Nook. The Digital Reader has just posted an image of what appears to be a Nook Simple Touch with a front-lit E ink screen that Barnes & Noble has dubbed "GlowLight." While this is by no means guaranteed yet, these images do look fairly authentic, and these details corroborate an earlier report from The Ebook Reader. It sounds like the Nook will use a similar technology to what was described as being used on the next Kindle — a thin layer that covers the entire screen and evenly distributes light across it. While we're not sure when we'll see the latest Nook hardware, it...