Nook GlowLight 3 released Nov 8

[Strether]

I bought this reader a couple of weeks before the B&H firing debacle, as a potential gift to my sister-in-law who owns a Kindle Paperwhite, but was complaining about the blue light emitted during the evening.

I bought it and set it up for her and handed it over. After reading a book in it, she decided she preferred her Kindle, blue light and all. And since my brother only reads on his iPad, it got returned to me.

So I side-loaded some books from Calibre and it's been a very pleasant surprise. I've read several books on it now

Aside from that first Sony reader, I've only owned Kindles, though a lot of those.

All the defects in the software have been enumerated over and over in various threads so no need to go into those. I also don't like the page turn buttons, which don't turn the pages as fast as a simple touch to the screen. I own the new Kindle Oasis, which has very fast reactions, so that's probably spoiled me.

Until I read a post from Barry in another thread, I didn't understand why I couldn't get a decent sort by Author in the library, but went back to the settings and unchecked a few of those and all is well.

I bought a Fintie cover for it, but a sleeve would be a better choice. Won't use the cover and if anyone is interested in it, let me know and I'll send it along. It's the one showing a star field. There's nothing wrong with it, but half of the pleasure of owning this is a feel of it in your hands (the other half being the excellent screen.)

Jim

[Calenorn]

Hi Jim,

I'm also enjoying my Glowlight 3. It does some very important things very well.

I hope you find a home for that Fintie cover. I have one; it's nice; I'd recommend them.

[HLS]

I uses the kindles the most but I as well am surprised on how nice the new Nook Glowlight 3 is. I bought it to upgrade for I own many nook books already. I feel the print needs to b darker and it would be nice if it came in white.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by kcladyz

I uses the kindles the most but I as well am surprised on how nice the new Nook Glowlight 3 is. I bought it to upgrade for I own many nook books already. I feel the print needs to b darker and it would be nice if it came in white.

The Glowlight Plus shares the same screen and comes in white. But it lacks the page turn buttons and color changing screen. It is waterproof.

I think of the Glowlight Plus and Glowlight 3 as sister devices. Each offers options the other doesn't.

[Ryogo]

Nook Glowlight Plus has one fatal flaw - phantom touches Otherwise it would be a better than average device.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Ryogo

Nook Glowlight Plus has one fatal flaw - phantom touches Otherwise it would be a better than average device.

Phantom touches? Do you mean the capacitive Home button?

Or is it haunted

[Ryogo]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Phantom touches? Do you mean the capacitive Home button?

Or is it haunted

I mean that in some cases book registers touches while user has not touched anything or (which happens more often) instead of 1 touch made by user it register like, 10 touches in different areas of screen.

[azayn]

I played around with the Glowlight 3 at a B&N store last night. Compared to my Nook Simple Touch, it's lighter, has more comfortable page turn buttons, and the night mode feature is really nice. I liked it better than the Kindle Paperwhite and similar devices from Kobo. I do wish they had kept the Glowlight Plus's smaller form factor though.

But B&N's shaky ebook business and the 1 GB limitation on side loaded content kills it for me. Think I'll wait for the Kobo Clara and Onyx Boox Poke before deciding what e-reader to upgrade to.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by azayn

But B&N's shaky ebook business and the 1 GB limitation on side loaded content kills it for me. Think I'll wait for the Kobo Clara and Onyx Boox Poke before deciding what e-reader to upgrade to.

That sideloading limit is gone. It has... 5.5GB(?) available for sideloading now.

[Calenorn]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

That sideloading limit is gone. It has... 5.5GB(?) available for sideloading now.

Zod is correct. If you buy a Glowlight 3 the memory partition will be removed with the first software update, which the unit should do on its own when connected to WiFi.

[azayn]

Thanks, that's good to know. I'd heard a fix was in works but didn't know it was already available.

This does put the Nook back into contention for me. Might revisit if there's a price drop down the road..

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by azayn

Thanks, that's good to know. I'd heard a fix was in works but didn't know it was already available.

This does put the Nook back into contention for me. Might revisit if there's a price drop down the road..

I have one and will say that the Nook is a beautiful piece of hardware. Some people say it is too big. Maybe it is. But when I use it, it feels very nice in the hand. The screen is great and the nightlight is more useful than the gimmick I thought it would be.

The software is a let down. It's okay. But not as nice as my Kobo. Also, there can be issues with sideloading bookings appearing and disappearing. I haven't noticed that myself, but some users have. Hopefully these will be resolved by software updates.

[barryem]

I also have the Glowlight 3 as well as a Paperwhite and a Voyage. For a long time the Voyage was my favorite but as time went by I began to prefer the raised bezels and the small form factor became less important.

Now I think my favorite reader is the Paperwhite, based on it's features. But the Glowlight 3 is better hardware. It has a sharper, more contrasty screen. I don't care about the buttons but they don't bother me. It's the screen that I like.

Still, I like the sync feature of the Paperwhite so I can read on my phone when I'm away from home and keep synced with my Paperwhite. And I like X-Ray for those books that have it.

The drawback of the Glowlight 3 is that it's interface is a bit buggy. Nothing terrible but I do think that's it's main issue.

I'm glad I got it. I'll probably use it for side-loaded books and the Paperwhite for books I buy from Amazon. I buy most of my books from Amazon.

Barry

[rem736]

Originally Posted by Ryogo

I mean that in some cases book registers touches while user has not touched anything or (which happens more often) instead of 1 touch made by user it register like, 10 touches in different areas of screen.

could this have been caused by low levels of static electricity? i have experienced this with other readers where just hovering my finger over the screen would cause a page turn.

[Ryzir]

I purchased a GL3 a couple of weeks ago when it was on sale. I'm pretty happy with it after side-loading some apps.

The reader is very comfortable to hold and the screen is really crisp. The back lighting could use some work. It is blotchy at the top. The color temp is nice but could also be better. Since it is using regular led's that tend to be very cyan and orange led's the color is very magenta at the cool end of the slider and too orange for me at the upper end. I still prefer it to the cyan color though.

The software would be a deal breaker for me if I wasn't able to side-load a different reading app. I was able to get ALreader installed and it works really well. It has an eink mode and tons of options on top of that. The dictionary support is also great in it. I installed ColorDict and the integration with ALreader is seamless.

The main issue I have with the GL3 is that BN decided to disable full screen refresh while reading which causes the text to deteriorate during long reading sessions. ALreader has an option for full screen refresh to set how many pages before it does one but it doesn't work on the GL3, presumably because BN changed how they handle full screen refreshes.

I still think I'm going to keep it. Turning it off and on again does a full screen refresh so I've been doing that when it gets bad.

Anyway just thought I'd share my $0.02 about this reader.