Tablet for reading digital comics, manga and graphic novels

Social Discussion (non-gaming)
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For a while now I’ve been thinking of getting back into reading comics and such. What are the best available tablets for reading on the go? I know the market isn’t what it used to be and I suspect the ideal/best option may simply be an iPad (which are listed as Don’t Buy because of an upcoming refresh). But there may be something better out there so thought I’d get some feedback from those of you who have been in the same boat and have experience with this.

I’m looking for a tablet with a high resolution screen; cheap Fire tablets and other sub-HD tablets are no good because of loss of detail, pixelation and small text being hard to read. Heck, I’m kind of looking to avoid 1080p too… I’m honestly surprised at how many recent tablets are still so low-res. Aspect ratio is also important: years ago I bought a Samsung Ativ and the huge bezels + 16:9 ratio made it ridiculous to hold in portrait mode. 16:9 also has a lot of unused space at the top/bottom when reading anything with typical paper dimensions. And it’s always nice to have good performance, good apps, ease of use, adequate storage, etc.

My last device was a little Chinese tablet with I what I think was a “B grade” ipad mini screen (same size/res, nice quality). Performance was a bit of an issue and it had wonky dual boot setup (Windows, Android). It was fine but the screen was a bit too small even if it was clear due to the high pixel count and that was a few years back, so I’m hoping much better options are available now.

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Ive had a bunch of tablets over the years, including iPads and hands down my favorite is my current one, the Samsung galaxy tab s3

The amoled hdr screen is incredible. I really debated between this and the IPad pro 10.5 but the tab s3 has the better screen and thanks to it being android you get all the benefits of that over iOS not to mention its half the price

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I can attest to that. There is no better screen on the market for both tablets and phones than the Samsung ones. Because they’re OLED they can burn in over time, but considering the rate at which most people upgrade their devices, it’s pretty much a non-issue.

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Thanks for the suggestion! I’ve really had an itch to read some comics, especially on my morning commute, so I looked into the S3, made up my mind and rushed over to BB last night. There’s an S4 coming soon but I ruled it out since it’s supposed to be 16:10, larger (and undoubtedly more $$$).

The S3 looks and feels fantastic! This is the hands-down the best tablet I ever owned and the device with the best screen ever in my possession. Far and above my past purchases of a Nook Color, a couple of hybrids with detachable tablets that were awkward (16:9) and low-res with huge bezels, and a 8" Chinese tablet with pretty good hi-res screen but a bit too small and iffy performance.

I picked up a Marvel Unlimited sub and already read through the available issues of the Darth Vader comic this morning on the way to work. :+1:

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Glad you like it! You’ll get your typical crew of people saying android tablets suck because there’s no apps etc but all I use 99% of the time is chrome, YouTube, twitch, play books and a cbz reader. I don’t know what else I would even need?

Being able to access the tablet over your network like a hard drive is killer feature not to mention full support of any audio/video codec you could ever want.

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They just don’t know what they’re talking about :stuck_out_tongue:

https://masterofcode.com/blog/app-store-vs-google-play

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Same – I use Youtube, Chrome and the same couple dozen apps to varying degrees across all smart devices. If there’s something I need in a pinch it’s always been easy to find something suitable. The days of being envious at all the stuff on iOS and daily/weekly scouring of the Android Market/Google Play for new games, apps and novelties ended years ago for me. Like a fad activity that died out. I typically don’t open the Play store for months at time!

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They are indeed wrong, but that’s because it isn’t about the number of apps. The problem instead is how the vast majority of Android tablet apps aren’t really built for the usage patterns of the tablet - a larger device that you hold in any orientation and from a further distance from your face.

This isn’t really Android’s fault, but just how the market for Android tablet looks at the moment. Because most Android tablets being sold have traditionally been 7-8" devices, developers have little incentive to redesign their apps to make use of that extra real estate, so many Android tablet apps behave like stretched out phone apps instead. This has never been a problem with the iPad because it quickly established itself as an alternate device (and Apple heavily encouraged the creation of iPad-only apps in its early days as iPhone apps didn’t automatically scale to fit the larger screen).

This is an interesting read on the issue:

Four years after the article and things never really improved, which is unfortunate:

In the year 2016, do Android tablet apps still suck? To answer this, I installed the top 200 apps on the Pixel C and gave them all a quick test drive. I looked at apps only—not games—using this “Top Apps only” Play Store list. The idea is that games scale just fine on tablets; it’s apps that are the challenge.

Of the top 200 apps:

  • Nineteen were not compatible with the Pixel C
  • Sixty-nine did not support landscape at all
  • Eighty-four were stretched-out phone apps
  • Twenty-eight were, by my judgment, actual “tablet” apps

That there aren’t many tablet apps isn’t a surprise to most people. What was a shock was the lack of landscape support in so many apps. More than 33 percent of the top 200 were all portrait, all the time, and many more (even some Google apps) had interstitials and other single screens that didn’t support landscape.

Android apps are primarily used on phones, which are primarily used in portrait mode. The Pixel C primarily lives in landscape mode, though—the cameras, physical buttons, microphones, and speakers are oriented with the expectation of landscape, and the device must be in landscape in order to use the physical keyboard. When compared to the phone market, this is a very rare configuration that creates a problem in apps that most people won’t notice.

It’s a shame, as I always wanted to pick up a larger Andoid tablet but I’ve always been disappointed by the software. Since the Pixel-C Google appears to have given up entirely, much like Microsoft did with Windows 8, and has shifted focus to ChromeOS tablets instead which are more like laptop competitors (think the modern Surface) than media consumption devices.

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The Fire HD 10 has a 1080p screen. That’s good? It’s also $99 right now.

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Should be decent, though less so for reading - 9:16 isn’t a great aspect ratio for matching books. If you don’t mind black bars to the top and bottom of your pages go for it though!

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I’m still using the original iPad air. I love it for reading manga.

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Rocking an ipad 2.
It’s seriously slow when it tries to run modern apps, but still has a nice display for comics, etc.

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i grabbed a refurb Samsung Galaxy S years back and it was one of the best purchases i’ve made, that and the 128 GB SD in it. colors are amazing for comics, i paid a few bucks for comicrack & wouldn’t change a thing