Zyaga Writing about whatever the hell I want, cuz it's the Interwebz!

The 3 Best Ways to Read Digital Manga

Recently, since Tadoku started, I realized carrying manga books around can be a pain at times. It hit me that I needed to be using some form of eReader as it would allow me to, at any point, read different manga books throughout the day without having to carry a bunch. Thus, my search for the best way to read digital manga began!

Kindle + Mangle

The Kindle 3 is probably the device I would have went with. The 6″ screen would be a bit small, but having the zoom feature would at least make it bearable. The price for a DX would’ve been out of the range I was willing to pay for an eReader. And if you’re going to go with a Kindle, you’ll want to combine it with Mangle.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNCpoZvwKug

Nook Note: There is a reason I didn’t mention the Nook. It’s simply because the Nook Color, as far as I know, is the only version that has some sort of zoom. The original (and new Nook), apparently doesn’t have it, or at least not yet. And without a zoom, while it is a 6″ screen, I just can’t recommend that for manga. At least the Kindle has a zoom, so you can make the text bigger when needed.

Any Tablet

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlLP3RXkmUQ

By tablet, I mean iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, etc. It doesn’t really matter too much about what OS, because each generally have their own reader apps. Obviously, the biggest benefit of having a tablet is that it is not just an eReader. So, before spending hundreds of dollars on a Kindle 3 DX, you might want to reconsider getting a tablet instead, for that kind of price. And of course, a bigger tablet such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1″ would be beneficial so that you rarely (or never) have to zoom to read the text.

As far as which tablet you should get, leave me out of that flame war..

Comic Reader Mobi

Comic Reader Mobi is THEE best manga/comic eReader software/app I’ve ever seen. So what does it do different than all the others? Well, good sir, it allows you to drag and select any piece of the image (comic), in which case a little window pops up as a sort of magnifying glass of where you just selected. What does this mean? Well, it means that even on a 4.3″ screen (my phone), I can read manga freakin’ perfectly. The issue has always been that the screens are too small so you can’t read the text. This solves all of that!

I’m getting anxious just to show you what this thing can do, so check this shit out :

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smRIKw23FWA

Some of you may say it’s a bit pricey, but when I saw what this thing could do, I literally said “F*** buying another device!” and immediately bought this application for my Android EVO 4G. I couldn’t be happier with my decision. I read everywhere I go now. It’s the same type of epiphany that hit me when I got AnkiDroid on my phone a while back. All excuses, all hassles, all annoyances, all issues… went out the window.

I can honestly say AnkiDroid provided me with what I needed to succeed, by placing me in the right spot all day long, every day (my phone never leaves me, not even when sleeping..). I thoroughly believe Comic Reader Mobi is going to be the same for my reading of manga. Hell, I can already say it IS the same, because I’ve been reading at least 50-100+ pages every day. That says something, when I was previously at 0 per day.