New Nook Glowlight 4?

[rhyta]

Originally Posted by LDB

Bad link. "http://" needs removed.

Sorry, posted this late and didn't see the extra text. Hadn't had a chance to check back until now.

Thanks for correcting the link, this makes me very curious. Was looking at Kobo as a sub for my ST with Glowlight but think I will have to check this out.

[FerociousNOOK]

Stopped by B&N today to see if the new Nook Glowlight 4 has been released or a release date. No, according to the B&N employees the release date has been pushed back to mid December. I asked if I can take a pic of the spec sheet but no. Additional info from their employee only info (basic spec):

Screen size: 6", 300dpi
Weight: 6oz
Storage: 32gb
Battery: will read multiple weeks on single charge.

Buttons: on bezel
CPU: No info on employee spec sheet
Cores: No info on employee spec sheet

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Calenorn

"Gentoo" = second generation?

Technically, this is the fourth generation of Eink Nooks.

1. BNRV100 (First) used the Samsung S3C6410
2. BNRV300, BNRV350, BNRV500 (Simple Touch, w/Glow, Glowlight) used TI OMAP3621
3. BNRV510, BNRV520, BNRv700 (Glowlight2/3/7.8) used NXP iMX6SL and were made by Netronix
4. BNRV1100 (new 6") uses Allwinner sun8iw15p1 and are made by Netronix

So, as far as Netronix is concened, this could be considered the second generation. Some (all?) Kobo models have also been made by Netronix. They share the same ntx_hwconfig system and board numbering scheme used in the B&N Netronix models.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by FerociousNOOK

Screen size: 6", 300dpi
Weight: 6oz
Storage: 32gb
Battery: will read multiple weeks on single charge.

So this will be the lightest Nook yet (5 grams lighter than the original GlowLight (not Simple Touch) and 20 grams lighter than the GlowLight 3).

Mid-December. Hopefully it will be announced a little sooner than that? Or maybe that's when it will be announced? If so, they're going to completely miss Christmas.

Thanks for the information.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Renate

The processor is an Allwinner sun8iw15p1, quad core, 1.5 GHz.

Is that the same (or similar) chip used in Sage (and possibly the new Paperwhite)?

I believe it is a bit faster than the chips used in previous Nooks, which should help with complaints about speed.

[Renate]

Although I don't have any definite information on the Kobo Sage, I strongly suspect that they are the same processor. Netronix was always stuck on the NXP iMX6SL single core processor. The Kobo Sage and the new Nook seems to be their breakout. Every chip maker has a range of processors but Allwinner has more to do with price than performance. The sun8iw15p1 quadcore is fabricated with 28 nm technology. The Poke3 with its Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 octocore is made with 14 nm. This translates to quite a difference in the performance and power savings. Also, FWIW, the 636 supports 64 bit while the Allwinner doesn't. Still, using the Allwinner is not a bad marketing decision. It's just that I'm still glad that I have my Poke3!

Edit: I don't understand the marketing of B&N. I would have had on the website, "COMING SOON, OUR INCREDIBLE NEW NOOK THAT'S A QUANTUM LEAP FORWARD!". That is, unless they've realized that it's not even going to be availible until next year?

Edit: Yeah, it probably is actually a 1.8 GHz.

[Renate]

I'd like to mention that Netronix works for the following customers:
B&N, Bag2Go, Blade, Bookvoed, Carrefour, Catosabido, Chienhua, DT, ElBook, ElBook2, Elonex, Findaway, Gatosabido, Greenbook, IWG, Icarus, Infibeam, Inves, Kobo, LitRes, MVM, Medion, Optical Storage, pageone, pageplace, PBG, PopSlate, RiDi, Startic, Trio, Upg, Wolder

What? You don't own a PopSlate?

[christianbk]

I stopped by the kiosk today and also got the response that the release date was "mid-December." The employees did not give any additional information.

My wishlist for Nook:

- Some member benefit. Like 10% off purchases or something?

- Easier to "send" or "sync" library book loans.

- Expansion of their Serial Reads. It's a fun concept but obviously caters to who thei majority of the Nook market is: romance book folks. Get some fantasy or sci-fi on there!

- More reading settings. I heavily dislike the "(Time) left in chapter" way of displaying that info and like how Kobo does page turns. I thought Nook had this previously?

I'm hoping they can advertise this thing well. Show how folks can have this large collection of Wheel of Time books all on this one-hand device. Show ACTUAL benefits of an ereader instead of gals going on a road trip and slipping their reader in their purse.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Renate

I'd like to mention that Netronix works for the following customers:
B&N, Bag2Go, Blade, Bookvoed, Carrefour, Catosabido, Chienhua, DT, ElBook, ElBook2, Elonex, Findaway, Gatosabido, Greenbook, IWG, Icarus, Infibeam, Inves, Kobo, LitRes, MVM, Medion, Optical Storage, pageone, pageplace, PBG, PopSlate, RiDi, Startic, Trio, Upg, Wolder

What? You don't own a PopSlate?

I'm pretty sure Tolino would also be on this list now — I think even before they started selling Kobo "clones." (I realize there's differences, but very similar.)

So, out of curiosity, do you know who makes PocketBooks? For some reason I assumed Netronix.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by christianbk

- More reading settings. I heavily dislike the "(Time) left in chapter" way of displaying that info and like how Kobo does page turns. I thought Nook had this previously?

This has changed with recent updates. You now have four choices by clicking the bottom of the page when reading. No footer at all. Page numbers on the left "52/403" and percentage on the right "12%." Time left in chapter "23 mins 48 secs left in chapter" and the percentage on the right. Time left in the whole book "19 hrs 53 mins 24 secs left in book" with the percentage on the right. I like the page number best.

As for their advertising. I thought the ad for the 2019 Nook GlowLight Plus was pretty good. Their target market is probably not the small percentage of technically inclined eBook readers you'll find on MobileRead. I (personally) agree that I would like to see less focus on Romance books but I'm guessing that's a huge part of their market. I remember when I worked for a paperback and magazine distributor in the late '70s and early '80s how customers would line up to get one each of the Harlequin books as we tried to put them on display.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I'm pretty sure Tolino would also be on this list...

I've never had a Tolino in my hand. It would be pretty easy to check. Netronix, to this day, still doesn't use device trees (DTBs). That's why they have the ntx_hwconfig in unpartitioned flash. It's pretty conspicuous.

Originally Posted by rcentros

So, out of curiosity, do you know who makes PocketBooks?

No, idea, but it is interesting that the new Nook uses the C2 variant of the C1 variant of the same screen on the PocketBook Touch HD.

Re: Romance books. I have nothing against them and my local library can spend 90% of their budget on them as far as I'm concerned, but I wish that there was a user setting that would completely turn their existence off. The same goes for Anime, graphic novels, Russian, Chinese, Spanish and any other languages that I don't read. I don't know why purveyors of books don't have this. I applaud the transcribers of science fiction monthlies on gutenberg.org, but life would be simpler if they didn't list them (for me).

[rcentros]

Here's what it looks like. More or less like a GlowLight 3 with smaller bezels. (B&N now has covers for the GlowLight 4 up for sale. The picture came from those ads (blown up from a small picture, which is why it's blurry).

[Renate]

Well, that's a new data point. With all the diagrams it's kind of worked into our minds that it was going to be white.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Renate

Well, that's a new data point. With all the diagrams it's kind of worked into our minds that it was going to be white.

Yeah, I was hoping they would be black, but the diagrams definitely made it look white. Barnes & Noble have now taken down the GlowLight 4 covers. I guess they put them up a little early. I was hoping to see the GlowLight 4 (itself) listed.

[Shadilly]

Hopefully it will support a cover that wakes and sleeps when open and closed. Especially with my Plus its very janky to press the home button, wait for the Nook to wake up, swipe once, swipe twice and finally it opens and takes me to...my home page. I'd love to just open the cover and be reading a book in a second rather then 30 seconds.

The screen saver is also a bit dated, just give me the option to display my book cover and we'll be good.

B&N definitely knows what it's money maker is. The page turn buttons! There's something special about having buttons on both sides of the device.