The Barnes & Noble NOOK Glowlight Plus is an eReader with a 1072 x pixel E Ink touchscreen display, an ambient light, and 4GB of storage.
It’s basically B&N’s answer to the latest Amazon Kindle Paperwhite, except the NOOK Glowlight Plus has a classier design with bronze aluminum and white plastic… oh yeah, it’s also waterproof.
There’s something else that makes the NOOK Glowlight Plus different from Amazon’s eReaders though: the B&N model runs Android… and you can root it.
Actually all of Barnes & Noble’s NOOK eReaders to date have run Android-based software. And hackers have figured out how to root most of them. The NOOK Glowlight Plus is just the latest to fall victim.
So what can you do with a rooted NOOK? Rooting lets you access files and settings that would otherwise be hidden or protected, so you can install a file browser and start tweaking system files to change the wallpaper, home screen, or other features.
In fact, you don’t even need to root your device to install third-party apps on the NOOK Glowlight Plus. But it should open up the door for additional hacks.
So while the NOOK ecosystem might not be as popular as Amazon’s Kindle platform, the fact that you can basically turn the latest NOOK into an Android tablet with an E Ink display certainly helps set it apart.
The NOOK Glowlight Plus normally sells for $130, but right now it’s on sale for $100.
via Mike Cane