Barnes & Noble wants to save you from reading on an iPad with its new e-reader

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Barnes Noble Glowlight 4e
Barnes Noble Glowlight 4e (Image credit: Barnes & Noble)

What you need to know

  • Barnes & Noble has announced a new e-reader in the form of the Nook GlowLight 4e.
  • The new Kindle competitor will sell for $119.99 and pre-orders are now open.
  • The new device has a 6-inch E ink screen.

Apple's iPads are great at all kinds of things but they're not particularly good at being e-readers, probably because that isn't what they are. Amazon's Kindle is a particularly good e-reader and now it has some new competition in the form of Barnes & Noble's Nook GlowLight 4e.

Designed to be a cheaper version of the existing GlowLight 4, this new offering will set buyers back $119.99 and they can pre-order it now. For their money they'll get an E Ink display that comes in at 6 inches and 212 ppi, according to The Verge's report. It's powered by USB-C and has 8GB of internal storage, which is fair if not groundbreaking. The product is more costly than the Kindle's $89.99 asking price, but it has a slightly better screen so there's that.

  • Perfect lightweight eReader for on the go or staying home
  • 8GB of storage houses an ample digital library
  • Adjustable front light makes reading easy on the eyes
  • Physical buttons or finger-swiping turns pages
  • Members save 10% off all NOOK tablets, eReaders, and accessories

One thing the LowLight 4e can boast over its competition is the addition of old-fashioned buttons for changing pages, something Amazon ditched a while ago. The best Kindles Amazon sells today are all about swiping and tapping, something that could put plenty of people off. For those, the GlowLight 4e could be the better option.

Those people will need to wait a little while for their new e-reader to arrive, however. Barnes & Noble says that it'll begin shopping on June 7 in any color you like — so long as that happens to be black.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.