Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight

Pros: Best design, most fonts, expandable memory, and the GlowLight works extremely well.

Cons: Lacks Whispernet.

Summary: This is the ereader fans of e-ink have been waiting for. The best kept secret in the ereader world is that Barnes & Noble has quietly been ahead of Amazon in both reader and tablet products for the past year or so.

9 months before Amazon delivered the underwhelming Kindle Touch, Barnes & Noble released the Nook Simple Touch. An e-ink reader in a gorgeous form factor that actually fit your hand, contained hard page turn buttons, the same resolution screen as the Kindle but provided more font choices.

Just last month Amazon announced they were trying to add a self-lit screen to their Kindle Touch. While Amazon is still in the R & D phase, Barnes & Noble has put a brilliant product in my hands. Kudos.

The Nook Simple Touch was already the best e-ink reader on the market. The only reason I held onto my Kindle 3 was because of the snazzy lit case, which was powered by a clever hinge off of the unit-- no batteries! The Nook Simple Touch, in contrast, required a battery powered clumsy clip-on light. Boo!

I pre-ordered the Kindle Touch the day it was announced. When it delivered in November 2011, I was anxious to see how Amazon countered the beautiful Simple Touch. I'd harbored severe gear envy toward the look and feel for about a year-- so Amazon surely wouldn't let me down, right?

Wrong. The Kindle Touch was and is a complete step backward for Amazon. Horrible form factor-- Asymmetric bezel looked awkward. The silver bezel did little to make the screen pop. The screen itself was inset unexplicably 3/8 of an inch. The bezel was sharp on the edge, causing your finger to get raw during extended reading sessions. The unit had a propensity to double turn pages, too. Plus, no additional fonts or software overhaul. I sent it back and ordered the SimpleTouch when it went on sale for $79 dollars.

Still I found myself back on my old Kindle 3 most of the time because of its thin profile but mostly because of the lit case.

The Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight is a game-changer. Buy one. Don't hesitate, it's that good. The GlowLight is slick, but not distracting. It perfectly illuminates the page, without getting in the way or taking away from the material you're reading. It's everything you could want in an ereader. The only thing missing is 3G Wireless, but I didn't use it all that much on the Kindle-- I use Calibre to load my Kindle and Nook. There's a pleasant more intense glow along the top bezel, which sort of says, "Hey! The light is on!" but the illumination is even throughout the page.

The rest of the device is just like the non-GlowLight Simple Touch, but a bit faster in performance. It's an ergonomic wonder with its rubber coating and contoured back. It's lightweight, and the battery lasts pretty much forever, even with the light on. B & N has hit a home run with this device. It's perfect.

I have a passion for e-readers because I love to read. This one device solves a long-standing problem with e-ink technology. Great in the daylight-- out of luck in the dark. Those days are officially over.

If you like e-ink as much as I do for reading-- this is the device you've been waiting for.