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Barnes & Noble has made the best e-reader currently available even better byintegrating a light source into it. Priced at $139, the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight E Ink-based e-reader sets the standard for silky-smooth readingand shopping. And even better, you can enjoy reading it whereveryou happen to be, whether you re lounging on the lawn in brightsunlight, or sitting under the covers with little to no light inthe room. Although monochromatic E Ink e-readers make sense in manycircumstances, reading in the dark is not one of them. The bedsidelamp, or the overhead light in an airplane, can often be overkilland a disturbance to other people near you. With this e-reader,you re paying a $40 premium for the honor of having a built-inlight, but the versatility that the integrated reading light offersis well worth the extra bucks. The GlowLight makes the Nook Simple Touch e-reader highly adaptableto your environment and it makes Barnes & Noble the firstcompany to truly deliver on the promise of a built-in light source.Sony tried to do so four years ago, with its Reader PRS-700, butthat model s LED lighting, while useful in a pinch, barely reachedthe center of the page. The Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight doesn t have that problem.The LED light guide sits inside the Nook s bezel, at the top ofthe 600-by-800-pixel, 6-inch E Ink Pearl display. The light shinesdown on the display, creating a mostly evenly lit surface. Theillumination runs a little brighter near the top of the screen, butnot distractingly so. While testing the e-reader, I found that theGlowLight transformed spots I formerly considered e-reader deadzones into bona fide reading spaces, whether I was in bed readingin the dark, or sitting on a red-eye flight looking to unwind witha book without disturbing my seatmates with the too-bright overheadlight. Personally, I ve never found a clip-on light, usually at least a$20 option, to be adequate; it s just one more thing for me toremember to carry around. More important, the light that the NookSimpleTouch with GlowLight delivers is more subtle and targetedthan anything a clip-on light or overhead light could ever hope toachieve, and that alone makes the built-in light a win. It evencame in handy in ambient-light situations, such as in asunlight-kissed airplane with no cabin lights on; in thisenvironment, the GlowLight caused the text on the Nook Simple Touchto pop more, and made it easier to read. In practice, accessing the GlowLight is dead simple, and requiresno fumbling in the dark. Just tap and hold the n button at thebottom of the screen, and the light comes on; the longer you hold,the brighter it gets. (You tap and hold again to turn the GlowLightoff.) You can also adjust the light directly from an on-screenslider control, by tapping at the top status bar of the Nook. As you might expect, the GlowLight takes a toll on the Nook sbattery life. With the GlowLight on for about 30 minutes a day (andWi-Fi off), Barnes & Noble says you can expect to get about onemonth of battery life; that s half of the over two months quotedfor the original Nook Simple Touch . If you fall asleep while reading, however, you won t drain thebattery: The light will time out automatically after 5 minutes ofinactivity. This new model retains the dimensions of the original Nook SimpleTouch e-reader, measuring 6.5 by 5.0 by 0.47 inches. (The originalNook Simple Touch remains in B&N s lineup.) That means it is ahalf-inch wider than the fourth-generation Amazon Kindle . In spite of the addition of the GlowLight, this e-reader weighsever-so-slightly less than its predecessor, shaving 15 grams, or0.03 pound, off the Simple Touch s 0.47-pound weight. It s stillslightly heavier than the $79 fourth-generation Kindle with SpecialOffers (0.37 pound). Unlike Amazon s e-readers, though, Barnes& Noble continues to offer an ad-free experience, at no extracost. Without the light on, the new GlowLight e-reader stands out onlydue to the decorative gray trim surrounding the outer edge of thefront bezel. Although I generally prefer all-black bezels sincethey help text pop from the screen, I found that the gray trimdidn t detract from the readability of text. Like the Nook Simple Touch before it, the Nook Simple Touch withGlowLight uses Neonode s Zeforce infrared touch technology. Thetouchscreen is a pleasure to use; it was highly responsive to myswipes and taps, even when I was rapidly typing out searches in theNook store or setting up the e-reader s Wi-Fi connection. I alsofound the new Nook to be remarkably well balanced to hold, in onehand or two. The e-reader s front and back both have a rubberfinish, and the backplate cover dips comfortably, effectivelygiving the Nook a built-in hand grip. Using the Nook, revisited So much of the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight is an echo of itsnon-glowworm cousin. It remains intuitive to navigate. A buttonwith a lowercase n beneath the screen serves as the home button (inaddition to activating the GlowLight). The n starts the Nook swake-up process; you then slide your finger along the screen towake the device fully. The button also returns you to the on-screenquick-navigation buttons (home, library, shop, search, GlowLight,and settings). At the back of the e-reader, you ll find the power button, shapedto match your fingertip. The power button doubles as another way towake the e-reader, and it can serve to power down the unitentirely. My biggest gripe with the Nook s design concerns its physicalnavigation buttons. Though they re slightly improved over the controls on the original Nook Simple Touch, thepage-forward and page-back buttons on the Nook Simple Touch withGlowLight are still stiff, and require a very precise and deeppress to activate. One other nitpick: The contrast is not as good on the GlowLightversion as on the plain Nook Simple Touch. This problem appears toresult from the antiglare protector on the GlowLight model; thebackground of the display is a darker gray than on the plain Nook,and that in turn causes black text on the GlowLight version to lackthe same oomph as on the ordinary Nook. I hold out hope that the contrast might be adjustable via a futurefirmware update. The original Nook Simple Touch had suffered fromcontrast issues, and that model got a firmware update in November2011 that greatly improved the contrast of text and graphics; as aresult, blacks appeared darker, and text and graphics jumped offthe screen. That firmware update introduced the Nook stext-smoothing enhancements, too. Thanks to those improvements,plus the flexible font options, Nook models now have thebest-looking text you can buy on an e-reader today. The Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight also provides speedypage-refresh rates and page turns. The e-reader still does a fullrefresh once every sixth page, but by performing what appears to bea fast dissolve between pages, B&N lets you effectively moveahead through dozens of pages, while mitigating the annoyingpage-flashing effect long associated with E Ink. B&N doestargeted refreshes on a page that has just graphics changing (forexample, in the e-reader s bookstore), and on areas that have aheavy redraw. Navigating the interface You can turn pages by tapping on the left or right side of thescreen, though if you prefer you can swipe left to right (and, onsome screens, even vertically) to change pages too. While reading,you can tap at the top of the screen to reveal a status bar, whichshows the battery status, a clock, and a tap-to-add bookmark; italso reveals the same book-navigation buttons that you would get ifyou tapped in the center of the page. The buttons jump you to thetable of contents, let you search for a word or passage within abook, help you move to a specific page within a book using a slider(and kudos to B&N for including here just how many pages areleft in the chapter), or allow you to adjust text options (you canchoose from six not-so-different fonts and seven very differentfont sizes). I found it annoying that I d often have to move my hand all theway up to the top to find the X icon to close out of a page.Practically all other on-screen navigation is in the lower half ofthe screen, which made that finger travel feel inefficient. Beyondthat one interface hassle, though, B&N s otherwise clean,logical software design is impressive. The company clearly gavesome thought to the layout, as well as to how things operate. Theinterface is good, at times even great, but not perfect. An example is how B&N has implemented its notes and highlightsfeatures. Really, these remain the most usable examples of suchfeatures that I ve seen on an e-reader to date. You tap and holdyour finger on a word to select it; afterward, you can either dragthe pins to select a passage, or choose an action such as adding anote or looking up the word in the Merriam-Webster CollegiateDictionary. Unfortunately, you can t view all notes, highlights,or a combination of the two; instead, you see just a teaser of thepassage under a tab for notes and highlights in the table ofcontents. For now, you can view and share highlighted quotes with Gmailcontacts, via Facebook or Twitter. You can also share informationabout books you re reading, to make a recommendation, post yourreading status, rate and review a book, or like it on Facebook. TheNook Simple Touch has the same Nook Friends capabilities as theNook Color and Nook Tablet do; this social platform moves readingaway from being a solitary exercise, but it does so in a lessintrusive, less all-about-me way than on competitor Kobo s socialplatform. And it makes the functions far easier to use than onAmazon s Kindle. Other features The bookstore portal has been redesigned. Its new interface,coupled with the touchscreen, makes shopping far simpler thanbefore. The Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight has 2GB of built-instorage, plus a MicroSDHC card slot for additional storage hiddenbeneath a secure flap on the side. In addition to sideloading ePuband PDF files, the Nook reads JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP image files.Unlike many other e-readers, however, the Nook reflows PDF text,which makes it great for reading words, but a mixed bag if you retrying to view a document that s heavy on its particular layout. The e-reader runs Android 2.1, which makes changes and tweaks viafirmware update viable. But the device has no Web browser and noon-board e-mail client, disappointing omissions given how centralthese items can be to reading. Setting up the 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi is easy. The device automaticallysearches for and reconnects to your last network, even when bootingup after a complete shutdown. Users get free Wi-Fi access atAT&T hotspots nationwide. Macworld s buying advice At $139, the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight is the best e-readeryou can buy today. The built-in light makes for a compellingaddition, and puts this speedy e-reader in a class by itself untilother manufacturers play catch-up. The illumination alone is worththe premium, but honestly it s not so much of a premium when youconsider that archrival Amazon continues to sell its Amazon KindleTouch, without Special Offers advertisements and lacking a light,at $139. That alone should make bookworms bask in the glow of theSimple Touch with GlowLight. [ Melissa Perenson is a PCWorld senior editor. ]. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as Auto Dry Cabinet Manufacturer , China Medical Storage Cabinet for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Chemical Fume Hood.
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