The Amazon Kindle Oasis and Barnes and Noble Nook Glowlight Plus are two of the very best e-readers you can purchase. These devices are designed very differently from each other and bring different functionality to the table. Have you ever wondered what reader is better?
The Amazon Kindle Oasis features a six inch capacitive touchscreen display with a resolution of 1440 X 1080 and 300 PPI. The e-paper panel is utilizing e-Ink Carta HD and the screen is completely flush the bezel.
What makes the Oasis standout compared to previous Kindle models is that it has a built in gyroscope. You can easily switch orientations by simply flipping the device over. There are two physical page turn buttons on the right hand side and they do not provide haptic support like the Voyage does. The page turn buttons provide a great amount of synergy with the gyroscope because it makes the Oasis compatible with people who are left handed.
The one thing I really dig about the Oasis is that it was designed to offer the best in class night reading experience. The screen is noticeably brighter than previous models and there are no bleeding or splotches alongside the edge of the bezel. How did Amazon manage to do this? The Oasis employs 10 LED lights that are spread out evenly at the top and bottom of the screen. In retrospect the Kindle Voyage has 6 LED lights, while the Paperwhite has 4.
The Oasis has a odd design and was meant to be held in one hand. The reader comes with a free case that employs its own internal battery. It is supposed to give you double the battery life, first draining the case battery, than the Oasis’s. In reality, the battery on the Oasis drains super fast and I often have to recharge it every week.
The Barnes and Noble Nook Glowlight Plus features a six inch e-Ink Carta display with a resolution of 1430 x 1080 and 300 PPI. This is the first device that the bookseller has ever issued that as a capacitive touchscreen, all of their other models employed Neonode Infrared technology. This is beneficial for users because the screen is flush with the bezel, similar to how your smartphone or tablet functions.
One of the most hyped up features about the Nook Glowlight Plus is that it is completely waterproof. It is IP67 certified, which means you could leave it submerged in fresh water for up to 30 minutes at a maximum depth of 1 meter.
Older Nook devices had 2 GB of internal memory with 512 MB that was reserved for sideloaded content and the rest allocated for the operating system and e-books purchased from the B&N bookstore. This model has 4 GB, with 2 GB reserved for sideloaded content and the rest for Nook content such as e-books, newspapers and magazines.
When it comes right down to it, the Oasis is very expensive. The entry level model with WIFI and Special Offers costs $289 and the Nook is $129 and you can often find it on-sale for $99.99. Check out the video below for the hardware, software, shopping, and e-book reading experience.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
