Best e-reader / best for reading comics?

[Inkthinker]

I read 'em on my iPad fairly often in both PDF and whatever proprietary format they use for Shonen Jump. Been meaning to slap the Comixology app on there at some point. It's a pretty good reading platform, I didn't think I'd get used to reading Shonen Jump on the tablet but it's worked out just fine.

[jackdaw53]

I read 'em on my iPad fairly often in both PDF and whatever proprietary format they use for Shonen Jump. Been meaning to slap the Comixology app on there at some point. It's a pretty good reading platform, I didn't think I'd get used to reading Shonen Jump on the tablet but it's worked out just fine.

Thanks for that. I was originally thinking of iPad, but can't really see.... for uses I'll put it to... point of paying almost double plenty of other decent tablets.

Had a look at Comixology. It sort of confirmed my "fear"... that choice of recent comics is good, but back catalogue is pretty sparse. To me, that's a pretty significant drawback, since I like past runs more than most current series.

[Vidocq]

I think the Nexus is the best tablet right now. My only gripe with it is that you cant expand it's memory.

[jackdaw53]

I used Comixology, Marvel and Dark Horse's apps on the iPad 3. Comixology, I liked the guided view and the ease of use and the sales.
Anyway, hope this helps.

It does, thanks.

In some ways, I suspect best e-reader for comics is pretty hard to judge in shops... difficult to judge in a few mins how good a long session read on each device will be. (For a laugh, I might even have a go at looking at a comic on my basic kindle.... might make Geoff John's rainbow lantern tales a mite difficult to follow? But then, there are some good black and white comics.)

[Vidocq]

It does, thanks.

In some ways, I suspect best e-reader for comics is pretty hard to judge in shops... difficult to judge in a few mins how good a long session read on each device will be. (For a laugh, I might even have a go at looking at a comic on my basic kindle.... might make Geoff John's rainbow lantern tales a mite difficult to follow? But then, there are some good black and white comics.)

The latest Kindle PaperWhite uses E-ink like your own and has a comic reading software for Black and White comics. Hopefully next one will use color E-ink, which has been around for years and it's better on the eyes but it's apparently, still is way too expensive.

[Shawn Hopkins]

An iPad 3 or 4 is probably your best bet because of the combination of: a high resolution screen; a better PDF reader, Goodreader, than any I've found on Android; a better Comixology app with high-resolution comics that Android doesn't have; and more comics apps and stores in general. But in the tablet thread Lemurion made a very convincing argument that the Nexus 10 beats the iPad on the technical fronts, if not the app fronts. It has an even higher resolution screen, has an aspect ratio that fits a comics page better, and costs less.

Personally, I have an iPad 3 and really enjoy reading comics on it. Comixology comics look great, as do my GIT Corp DVD collections of Marvel comics in PDF. And there's cool stuff like Madefire motion comics.

Comixology's selection of old comics could be better, but they're adding new old stuff every week so it continues to grow. And I agree that Dark Horse's app is kind of sad. Great content, but a poorly implemented app.

One more thing to note about the iPad is that Marvel Comics Unlimited, Marvel's Netflix-like comic subscription service, does not work on the iPad because it's a Flash website. There are clunky workarounds but they lower the quality and aren't worth it. The site might work on an Android browser if you can find one that supports Flash.

I also owned the original Kindle Fire. I found the seven inch screen on that too small for reading comics without guided view or zooming in, so I don't think I'd like another seven inch tab like the iPad mini any better. Amazon's app store was also frustratingly limited, although it was easy to download and sideload apps it didn't have at the time, like the Dark Horse app. And the most frustrating thing for me about it was that I could not find a decent PDF reader for the GIT Corp DVDs. The GIT Corp DVDs have a copyright measure that prints a watermark right over the middle of the book when you print them out. It's not supposed to show when you're looking at them in a PDF viewer, but all the ones available on the Amazon store, including Adobe's, had a glitch that made them show up. I finally sideloaded an app that didn't show them, but it was a slow, clunky phone app that didn't have any gesture controls, only buttons.

[MadMikeyD]

Personally, I enjoy reading comics on my old 7" Nook Color. The downside to that being no Comixology, but with DC now going day-and-date across multiple digital platforms, that should get to be less of an issue.

[mistergoodman]

Had a look at Comixology. It sort of confirmed my "fear"... that choice of recent comics is good, but back catalogue is pretty sparse. To me, that's a pretty significant drawback, since I like past runs more than most current series.

Well, a lot of back catalogue will never receive a digital release, because a lot of old material doesn't have enough of a market to be profitable... and comics wouldn't be helped by glutting the market with every piece of crap that was ever published. But a suprising amount of the really great stuff has been released digitally. And ComiXology is currently adding nearly 1300 comics a month to their store. That's a lot of comics.

[Libaax]

Im very content with comixology app and reading comics in my Ipad. I bought it only to read digital comics really. I dig most comic apps except Dark Horse is waste of time. I regret i bought Lady Snowblood manga from them. It chrashes the whole fricking time.

Is there another good app to buy manga from i wonder though?

[zami77]

I've been using an Asus Transformer Prime for the past 10 months or so and it's been serving me very well. Although I agree screen wise I'm sure the Ipad is the best for reading digital comics, there were so many advantages for going with the Prime IMO. one of the major ones being the ability to have a micro SD card slot (I think I got 32 gigs in there with tons upon tons of GIT Corp comics on there, without fulling taking up my internal drive). Since I've gotten my tablet I'm a little ignorant on the current tablet scene, but I think you're definitely gonna want a 10.1 inch screen (or something very close, I was almost gonna get a kindle fire last year, but 7 inch screen's are just a touch too small for proper comic reading).

As for apps, the clear king is comixology, if you can still get your hands on the GIT corp DVD's they're pretty solid, but comixology is the best amalgamation of all the publishers under one roof, and it's easier to have your entire collection in one place. Also every few days comixology has some nice sales, and if you don't like anything that's up today, well wait a few days and there'll be a whole new set of sales. Going digital was pretty nice, although it was mainly me just dropping titles and not buying them digitally, and just getting random stuff on sale (which I've discovered some really interesting and unique stories).

[ProfessorX]

I've tried reading comics digitally a few different ways, but I like using an iPad the most.