Barnes & Noble Keeps the Nook on Life Support With the New GlowLight 4 Plus

Like that one restaurant that manages to thrive in a strip mall that died years ago, Barnes & Noble’s Nook line clearly has enough devoted fans for the company to continue to release updated e-readers, including the new GlowLight 4 Plus which finally brings audiobook support to E Ink-based Nook devices.

The last time we checked in with Barnes & Noble’s Nook was back in late 2021, with the debut of the Glowlight 4. The device introduced features like USB-C charging and an E Ink screen with color temperature adjustments for reading late into the night. The six-inch Glowlight 4 also featured a thick bezel reminiscent of e-readers from a decade prior, because Barnes & Noble doesn’t seem interested in leading the charge when it comes to introducing bleeding edge features on its e-readers.

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That trend continues with the new Nook GlowLight 4 Plus, which already made an appearance on Barnes & Noble’s in-store signage over a month ago. The waterproof e-reader includes a 7.8-inch, 300 PPI E Ink screen with color temperature adjustments that sit flush with the Nook GlowLight 4 Plus’ bezels which finally appear to be shrinking in size. Navigating ebooks can be done using the e-reader’s touchscreen or a pair of forward and back buttons located on either side of the device: a feature we’d admittedly love to see on our Kindles and Kobos.

Barnes & Noble also boasts that the Nook GlowLight 4 Plus’ 32GB of onboard storage is a big step up from the older GlowLight Plus’ 8GB, but that’s a four-year-old device, and users of the new model might find themselves quickly filling up that 32GB because the most notable upgrade of the new Nook GlowLight 4 Plus is the introduction of audiobook support and headphone connectivity through Bluetooth or a physical jack. The last Nook device to support audiobooks was the company’s 10-inch Lenovo-built LCD tablet. This will be Barnes & Noble’s first E Ink device to allow both ebooks and audiobooks to be consumed, although it’s a feature introduced on Kindle and Kobo e-readers years ago.

Despite today’s reveal, the Nook GlowLight 4 Plus won’t actually be available until September, but it can be pre-ordered through Barnes & Noble’s website, or its brick-and-mortar stores, starting on July 7 for $200.

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