Many proper names have been included, with mini-biographical sketches. A lot of entries have brief background encyclopaedia-style notes. About 2000 new words and phrases are included that have not appeared in any previous Oxford dictionary. It is in the choice of words, and the way they are defined, that NODE is most distinctive. Gone are many historical usages, rarely or never met with in print, that are included in many older works.
NODE wins hands down here for simplicity and going to the heart of the modern sense.
NODE ignores the former, and brings the latter out as a separate headword. But Chambers explicitly notes the computing sense of hub , whereas NODE wraps it up under its sub-sense. The entries for obverse are equally instructive. The former is certainly the easier to understand. Word histories are described well, avoiding abbreviations and giving a good idea of the way a term has evolved, as well as its background and possible origins.