Gadgetory

well this is David with virgin this is the barnes and noble nook simple touch with glowlight the names kind of a mouthful but it's mostly the same device as the Nook Simple Touch from last year it's slightly lighter it weighs about 7 ounces instead of last year 7.5 and it has a slightly lighter grey stripe around the edges but otherwise they're literally exactly the same Hardware they even have the same screen the 800 x 600 pixel eating display and that's basically the same as every other you book reader out there but the only problem with this devices screen is that there's a screen protector built in over top of it which is nice it used to be an extra accessory but it makes the screen feel a little lower contrast and makes text appear not as sharp otherwise the hardware is still really good it has a soft touch plastic and hardware buttons for changing the pages which is really nice in addition to the touchscreen interface the big difference here obviously is the glow light there are 8 LED lights at the top of the display buried underneath the bezel and then barnes noble uses software to spread the light uniformly over the display it works for the most part it's not totally uniform you get a really bright stripe at the top and then it gets dark and then brighter again but for the most part it works well and it definitely makes the device readable in the dark you turn it on by pressing and holding the end button at the bottom for two or three seconds or there's a menu item for doing it it's really easy and you can toggle the levels of brightness I wound up using it mostly at the darkest setting or just slightly above and if you're reading in the dark or in bed it's still totally readable even at really low brightness otherwise again it's pretty much just the same as the last generation no it's a really intuitive really good touchscreen experience definitely better than the kindle touch which had some problems with lag and it's still not as good even after some software updates the battery life is still really long you get two months of battery life without the light on which is the same as the last generation and even with the light on it barnes noble says you'll get a month of battery life with 30 minutes of reading with the light on every day which is still really long and you certainly won't need to charge very often the nook with glowlight is 139 dollars and it comes with a screen protector built-in plus powered after both of which kind of insanely used to be separate accessories and would cost up to twenty dollars more but mostly this is just last year's nook with a light added to it that's a pretty great combination especially for reading in the darker in bed it's better than having a bright LCD blaring at you or having to have a separate light source it's hard to switch ecosystems if you've already bought a kindle but if you're in the market for a first ebook this is definitely a great option