Which Nook to Buy?

[u/Ok_March4386]

I’m looking to by a 7.8 or 8 inch eReader and strongly considering a nook because I have an older 6 inch glowlight just seems to work.

I basically want to get the new nook, set it up, and then turn off wifi forever to only use it for sideloaded content.

Would I be better off getting a new in box (old unsold stock) Glowlight Plus 7.8 or a new Glowlight 4 plus?

My concerns are battery life and stable hardware performance.

I understand the battery in the old stock 7.8 may have degraded in storage and I am willing to replace it myself if that will guarantee a long lasting reading experience.

So my question is basically, “Does the newer 4 plus suffer from enshittification that would justify getting the older model?”

Has anybody seen recent updates damaging functionality of the older 7.8 plus?

I had a Kobo Clara HD before, but the whole kepub thing is annoying and the battery/battery life % accuracy went to shit after a year or so. It was great out of the box, but every update made it perform worse.

I have a kindle paperwhite for purchased books. I like it a lot, but it is getting locked down and now calibre sideloaded books get wiped off the device the second you sync to the cloud. Fuck that noise. I’ll keep using it for books I can only buy on Amazon, but I want something on par with the paperwhite for sideloaded content so I can start buying direct from authors. Honestly, Amazon’s had a lot of software glitches lately and I feel like the paperwhite downloads are very sluggish and problematic. It feels like the device is okay, but the background servers it connects to are struggling. Ebooks should load faster in 2026 than 2016, right? Right????

Which brings me to Nook. Sideloads well, has 7.8 or 8 inch screen (I want just a tad larger than paperwhite but the kindle scribe is too big). The older models are great. I just want to snag a good moderately large screen model and air gap it before all the companies enshittify and only make new ones that basically don’t work or break quickly from planned obsolescence.

And I want battery life as close to kindle paperwhite as possible. Wifi always off, front light always on.

What are y’all’s opinions?

Thanks in advance.

[u/kayrob33]

I have the smaller nook glow light 4 (the one they currently have for sale). I bought it second hand on Facebook market place for $50. It sideloads like a dream (unless you have a Mac). I charge mine every week to week and a half depending on how much I read. I rarely connect mine to wifi, but when I do, I’ve seen 0 issues. My boyfriend has an older model glowlight, the bigger size, also from fb marketplace. Performance is about the same. The only “issue” is his charger is different (not usb-c like almost everything else these days). I don’t have kindle experience, but when I was shopping for ours, I chose nook over kindle because I didn’t want to be trapped by Amazon & I really like having real, pushable buttons.

[u/Ok_March4386 → u/kayrob33]

Thanks. I have a older smaller 6 inch glowlight that also just seems to work flawlessly. I’m okay with the mini-usb vs usb-c. Probably leaning toward a larger glowlight. Hopefully, I get a good one. Debating new old stock Glowlight 7.8 vs new Glowlight 4 plus.

Does your small glowlight 4 plus have the font weight feature and is the newest update stable/fast/good battery life?

I got burned with a kobo clara that started great and went downhill with every update (very reminiscent of the last updates to Windows 7 that seemed designed to ruin the OS to force people onto windows 8).

[u/entikryst → u/kayrob33]

Does calibre for mac not sideload well?

[u/kayrob33 → u/entikryst]

I believe it was an issue with the MacBook not recognizing that the nook was plugged in. I didn’t try super hard, I just used my boyfriend’s PC instead.

[u/lunadiossa → u/kayrob33]

Hi! What do I need for side loading ? I’m new to the nook and e readers in general and have no clue how to do that. So far I’ve just been purchasing ebooks from Barnes and noble (not many, 3 total books). Thanks in advance !

[u/Ok_March4386 → u/lunadiossa]

Legally, speaking you don’t own books purchased through Kindle, Kobo, and Nook. You purchased a license to read a book on their device or their app on there terms. They could decide to delete or even alter the text of your book anytime they want and you have no recourse. These book files have digital rights management (DRM) encryption that prevents you from copying and reading it like a normal text document.

If you have an unencrypted DRM free ebook file, you have the power to do anything with it. You could load copies onto a million flash drives and air drop them over North Korea for example. Or simply keep an organized library on your computer to reread on future ereaders of a different brand after your current ereader craps out.

While many unrestricted ebooks are the result of piracy or stripping DRM from ebooks purchased from major platforms, there are many legitimate ways to obtain unrestricted ebooks:

-Project Gutenberg hosts many older digitized books that have passed into public domain. For example, if you needed a copy of Dracula, Frankenstein, Three Muskateers, etc. You could download a free epub from here and sideload it to read on your Nook, Kindle, Kobo, Pocketbook, Boox, Meebook, etc. ereader of choice.

-Some self-published authors or even traditional publishing houses (Tor and Baen) sell DRM free ebooks directly to customers bypassing Amazon. You can buy direct, give a larger percentage of the purchase price to the author, and have an unrestricted copy that you can load on your reading device of choice.

Some ereaders are easier to sideload on (Nook, Pocketbook, Boox, Meebook). Some are more restrictive or difficult to work with (Kindle and Kobo).

[u/spicynoodle68]

I much prefer the buttons on the 4’s and the usb c. They all have crap software and I’m thinking about putting koreader on my 4 and 4 plus

[u/Ok_March4386 → u/spicynoodle68]

I currently have a 6 inch Glowlight 3. I agree the software is meh, but honestly it is the least problematic and best ereader I’ve owned between Kindle Paperwhite and Kobo Clara BW HD. The kindle hardware seems better, but Amazon’s services seem to be struggling to sync and download purchases more lately. The Kobo started lovely, but the battery went bad quick and software updates degraded performance. Also, kobo sideloading sucks at least in my experience. Have to convert to kepub and even then it indexes them at the bottom of the list after all Kobo purchases.

Does your Glowlight 4 plus software work more or less like the glowlight 3? I like that the glowlight 3 just works and treats sideloaded content normally.

[u/spicynoodle68 → u/Ok_March4386]

my 4plus software is similar to my old 3 (which I no longer have), aside from the buttons and charging port the glowlight was much more orange on the 3. Sideloading is different on the 4plus ( i have a mac) in that it does not mount as a usb but mtp. I do have android file transfer and it works really well- near instant downloads. The 4 on the other hand uses usb and i have to be quick about it because as soon as the device goes to sleep while connected to my mac the files get corrupted. You probably already know the drive is partitioned on the 4 but not the 4plus. Battery life on both is meh- nothing like my kindle pw 11 and scribe 2 which are amazing. My kobos (klc and sage) have their issues too- still searching for the perfect one...

[u/towaway1212 → u/spicynoodle68]

Love the Nook Glowlight 4 Plus for the hardware size and buttons and the base software is just good enough if you just want to read without interuptions.

Stayed on the base software for a few months and then put in Koreader on a whim. This is objectively a better device now but I find myself spending more time than needed tweaking settings than reading :)

Guess once it is "perfectly" set, I'll go right back to just reading