Gadgetory

what's up prize 5 fans i'm brian Tong and the ereader market continues to be a hotly contested battle ground so hold on to your butts it's a prize 5 push out between the Amazon Kindle Touch ad free version and barnes & noble's nook simple touch with glowlight now our judges for this fight our executive editor John go home falcone executive editor David the bad boy car nguoi and myself Brian King Kong Kong will take all three judges scores and average them out to the nearest tenth each round the final prize fight score will be an average of all rounds using the same decimal system we're going five rounds deep first up is designed Amazon's Kindle Touch streamlines its design with an all touch interface removing the keyboard and using a physical home button it has a minimalist design with a soft textured backing and is barely slimmer compared to its competition now the barnes and noble nook simple touch has a unique ereader design with rounded corners and a backside contoured design it's more ergonomic and comfortable to hold and the glow light version has a gray accent on the border we wish it was a little thinner but it's smaller footprint is nifty and gives it the edge the nook simple touch gets a 4.3 and the Kindle Touch gets a 4 next round is navigation in the Kindles navigation is simple and straightforward but there are a few curious things you have to use the power button to wake it from sleeping instead of just pressing the home button that's right there the home button serves literally no other function than to go back to the home screen and when you're reading you have to press in a specific area up top to bring up options even though it's a minor annoyance but really the OS is just too plain Jane and lacks any elegance or polish now the nook simple touch has both touch and physical control navigation when reading books you can move through the pages by their touching or using the physical controls on the side to turn pages pressing on the screen brings up more options and the home button not only helps to wake the simple touch but it's really the heart of the navigation for the main functions in a tool bar plus holding it down activates the glow light for reading overall the feel and controls here are just better the Duke simple touch gets a 4 and the Kindle Touch gets a 3 so after averaging two rounds Barnes and all the leads next round is features the Kindle Touch can listen to music or audio books through its speakers or headphone jack and it really makes it more than just an e-reader text to speech is supported but not all books can take advantage of it what the fall never come to an end amazon also touts their x-ray mode that breaks down important people places or topics within the reading but again it's not available for all books they've continued to leave in a web browser that's still not even worth using even if it's pinch and zoom is more like pinch and doom another killer feature is Amazon's lending library and if you're an Amazon Prime member you'll have access to one hundred and forty five thousand books that you can borrow including the recent edition of the entire harry potter series and that's huge so how does barnes a noble counter that well the note simple touch brings the most innovative feature we've seen on an e-reader since the invention of ian technology with its low light it illuminates the entire screen and allows you to read in the dark without disturbing the person next to you is truly a one-of-a-kind groundbreaking feature that trumps any single feature we've talked about and the Kindle team drop the ball on this one the nook simple touch brings an SD card expansion slot for storing more content you can go into a physical retail store and read a selection of books for free and native epub support is a big deal for hardcore users both ereader support overdrive for borrowing books from your local libraries there's PDF reading support plus social hooks for facebook and twitter this one's a close one but the Nook Simple Touch gets the edge where's revolutionary glow light and the Kindle Touch gets a 4 next round is Digital Ecosystem the content that's being offered has become more and more significant and this is where Amazon shines amazon has a larger offering of titles and often offers slightly better prices their lending library is a huge differentiator if you pay for amazon prime both e-meters offer books magazines and newspapers you can lend some books to friends but Amazon's Kindle Touch also lets you download audible audiobooks subscribe to blogs and even download games Barnes & Noble can't max the Amazonian beast when it comes to content and the Kindle Touch takes this round with the 4.7 and the note symbol touch gets up 3dr averaging four rounds we're tied at 3.9 the final round that decides it all is valued the Kindle Touch ad free version is 139 bucks and if you're okay with having an ad-supported version it will cost only ninety-nine dollars not first I didn't mind it doesn't get in the way of reading when I was hammered with Twilight ads for about a month I had a change of heart the nook simple touch with glowlight is also one hundred thirty nine dollars but it sets the standard for readers moving forward and is well worth it if you do any nighttime reading and you won't ever see a third-party ad on either of these the note simple touch gets a 4 and the Kindle Touch gets a 3 so let's average out all five rounds and in the battle where the milk came out firing amazon hit back hard for digital ecosystem but it just wasn't enough and the milk simple touch with glowlight takes this battle 3.9 to 3.8 and is your prize fight winner i'm brian Tong thanks for watching catch you guys next time on another prize fight you