Amazon has had more success with building a strong tablet brand then Kobo. One of the big strengths of the Seattle based company is packaging their ecosystem and delivering a unique Android experience. Today, we look at the two latest entrants to both companies product portfolios and see how they perform in real world tests.
The Kobo Arc 10 HD features a stunning 10-inch capacitive touchscreen with ten point multitouch. It has one of the best resolutions in the business with 2560×1600 pixels. Meanwhile the new Amazon HDX tablet has the exact same resolution of the Kobo device, but packages it in a 8.9 inch screen. Both tablets have similar hardware specs, such as quad core processors and RAM.
Aside from the hardware, both companies have been developing cool software enhancements that go the extra distance. Kobo has done “Beyond the Book” which basically gives you a rundown of the author, major characters and locations mentioned in the book. Amazon does X-Ray, which is a bit more polished, since its been around longer. It lists all of the major characters, how often they are referenced, and other does people, places and things.
Kobo and Amazon bill their tablets as e-Readers, instead of general purpose editions like the iPad. In order to gauge what the better investment for your holiday dollars we put the HDX and HD models head to head to see what type of job they reading eBooks, magazines, newspapers, comic books and audio/video.
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.