Amazon and Barnes & Noble are the top brands in the e-reader market. Both the Kindle Paperwhite and the Nook GlowLight are sold at $119. Both gadgets provide a lit screen for reading in the dark, and allow you to borrow books from the public library. We look at their top features to help you decide which e-reader is most suitable for you.
Design
The Paperwhite measures 6.7 x 4.6 x 0.4 inches, while the GlowLight’s dimensions are 6.5 x 5 x .42 inches. Kindle has a black frame, while the Nook provides a white chassis. Kindle is heavier at 7.3 ounces compared to the Nook’s 6.2 ounces. The Nook offers a power-down option and an anti-glare screen protector both of which are not provided by the Paperwhite.
Display and Light
Both e-readers have 6-inch screens with pixel resolution of 1024 x 768 (212 ppi). The Nook offers brighter lighting at 490 lux compared to the Paperwhite’s dimmer 333 lux. The Kindle provides a uniform light while Nook’s type looks sharper.
User Interface
The home screens of both devices present settings, the time, and the three most recently viewed content pieces. Barnes & Noble offers a starker look, while the Amazon e-reader offers more menu options. The Kindle also provides four book suggestions compared to the Nook’s one at the page bottom.
The Paperwhite offers an experimental browser that is absent on the Nook. Its search feature also throws up more relevant results compared to the Nook. So, while the Nook GlowLight provides an attractive interface, the Paperwhite is faster with a more useful search feature.
Books
The Paperwhite offers millions of books, magazines, and newspapers, and about 400,000 exclusive titles. Its storage capacity is 2 GB. Amazon also provides great content deals and you get more than 1.7 million titles for less than $10, as well as millions of free books that are out of copyright. Highlights are Ian Fleming’s James Bond series and Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games.
Barnes & Noble offers about three million titles, and its 4 GB storage can hold about 2,000 books. The Nook is compatible with the ePUB file format, which means you can read books from Sony, Kobo, and Google also.
Documents, Newspapers, and Magazines
The Paperwhite supports TXT, PDF, and DOC/DOCX files, while the Nook is compatible only with PDF documents. Paperwhite patrons can subscribe to 172 worldwide newspapers including The Boston Globe and USA Today starting at $5.99/month. Magazine subscriptions start at $1 and include 172 titles. The Nook offers a wider range of 515 newspapers and 2,082 magazines.
Social
On both devices, you can share text from the e-books with your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter. The GlowLight adds a thumbnail image of the book cover to the social post, making it visually attractive.
Amazon is looking to add Goodreads which is the world’s biggest e-reading community. This will allow you to connect with more than 20 million readers to know what they are reading and sharing.
Storage
As mentioned earlier, the Paperwhite’s storage capacity is 2 GB, which allows about 1,100 e-books to be stored. The GlowLight scores here with 4 GB of storage, which can hold about 2,000 books. Both can be backed up to the cloud. However, you cannot use a microSD card for more storage on neither gadgets.
Battery Life
Amazon says the Paperwhite can last for about eight weeks on a single charge, provided reading is restricted to 30 minutes per day, with the light setting at 10 and wireless off.
The Nook GlowLight can also last for about the same period on a single charge, at 30 minutes of reading per day, and with the device kept on the default brightness.
Conclusion
The Nook scores with its larger storage space and better social aspect. The Paperwhite’s strengths are its uniform backlight and compatibility with more types of files, among others. We hope this comparison article helps you decide which e-reader is most suitable for your taste and requirements.