Review: Barnes and Noble Nook Glowlight 4 Plus

Over the past few years, Barnes and Noble has consistently released new e-readers. The Nook Glowlight 4 Plus is the newest and best addition.

It's one of three in the brand's current lineup (there's also a Nook tablet). It's hard for any competitor to beat a Kindle, but maybe you're trying to escape the Amazon-verse and need some alternatives. It makes sense for a bookstore to make an e-reader. The Nook works pretty well, unless you want to download ebooks from the library.

Photograph: Barnes & Noble

I enjoyed using the Glowlight 4 Plus more than other Nooks I've tried. The screen is a large 7.8 inches, which is a joy to read on. You may like a smaller device for portability, but this fit into my purse just fine. It also has a 300-pixel-per-inch (PPI) resolution. It looks good, and it's easy on your eyes—even easier thanks to the warmth setting that goes from bright white to very orange. You can adjust it manually or set it to adjust automatically. You'll get 32 gigs of storage; that's a few thousand ebooks or over a hundred audiobooks, which is plenty! As with most E Ink tablets, I didn't drain the battery significantly after a week and a half; unless you're reading for many hours a day, you should get a few weeks out of a single charge.

All Nooks have physical page-turn buttons, which I absolutely love. I think every e-reader should have them. I'm often trying to read one-handed, and being able to just hit the button closest to my finger is easier than sometimes trying to reach across the screen to tap in the right place. There are two buttons on each side, and you can program them for your ideal setting—I like the bottom button for page forward, since it's typically easier to tap that one with little effort, and the top button for page backward. The Glowlight 4 Plus is waterproof too (IPX7), so I often floated around my apartment's pool with this in one hand, a White Claw in the other, and not a care in the world.

Most e-readers connect to Bluetooth headphones so you can listen to audiobooks, as this one does, but there is also a headphone jack here. Though I rarely listen to audiobooks, I am grateful to see the return of a headphone jack. I'm also a fan of Nook's screensaver art, which includes simple linework images of bookshelves and simple but cute doodles. It's better than what Amazon supplies on its Kindles. However, with a Kindle, you can display your current book's cover, which you can't do here.

Photograph: Barnes & Noble

Barnes and Noble has a large library with cheap and even free ebooks—I was even able to download Harley Laroux's The Dare, a TikTok recommendation that was banned from Kindle's e-library—but it's not as extensive as Kindle's. If you're a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, you can check out up to 20 books at a time without having to pay per book or return them in any designated time period. (Though that list leans heavy on romance, so if that's not your thing you may not find a ton of options there.) But if you do pay per book, you should see the exact same price on Barnes and Noble as you do on Amazon.

While I had a mostly enjoyable few weeks reading with the Glowlight 4 Plus, there were a few times when the screen froze and I couldn't turn the page until I restarted it. $200 is also a little steep, when the waterproof Kindle Paperwhite is $140.

The biggest downside to getting a Nook over a Kindle or a Kobo is the process of getting library books. If you didn't know, your library likely has thousands of ebooks that you can borrow for free without leaving the house. On Kobos, Overdrive is right on the device, so you can sign in with your library card and browse there. Even though Kindles require you to check out on another device, it's an instantaneous delivery when you do (and I don't like browsing on an E Ink tablet anyway).

With a Nook, you'll need to download the ePub file from your library to your computer and make sure your e-reader is logged in with your Adobe ID. Then you download either Adobe Digital Editions (for PCs) or Android File Transfer (for Macs), before plugging the Nook into your computer and transferring the files. Is it the worst thing I've ever done? No. Is it way harder than on a Kindle or a Kobo? Yes.

Though I've been using e-readers for a few years, I only recently became addicted to having mine close at all times. I have it when I'm sitting on my balcony, while waiting in a doctor's office, or walking on the treadmill at the gym. I finally broke through a long reading slump, where even getting through a few pages felt tedious. Now, I'm going through a book or two a week thanks to Grady Hendrix's horror titles. And some smut.

At the rate I'm going through books, I don't want to spend $15 or more on a physical copy and wait for it to arrive in the mail, or get in the car to drive to the store. I just want to click and go, and if I really love something, I'll purchase the hard copy. On the Nook, it's sometimes harder to find the exact #booktok spicy romance that I want. Still, aside from that, Nook does what it needs to do well: reading without distraction.