Tablet News - It's Been A Hot Second: Boox Palma 2, Lenovo Tab M11 and Kobo Libre Color 7

 I used to post my experiences with various tablets, and as some may remember I am among the vocal and distinct minority of those who tend to favor Nook as an online ebook resource over Amazon. Well, much has happened in the last few years, and here's how it shook out:

First, Nook continues to be a viable option for ereading, but their Nook Glowlight 4 and 4 Plus are the only readers really worth using. The Lenovo Tablet exists, and the latest iteration may be fine, but I opted instead for the Lenovo M11 Tablet for my ereading due to its larger form factor and the fact that it rather nicely captures a decent graphic novel (read: color) reading experience at a budget price. So I have a Nook Glowlight 4 Plus but it's mainly for reading before bed, and the Lenovo M11 Tablet is pretty much my go to reader when it comes to the large ebook graphic novel collection I've accrued on the Nook.

Amazon shot itself in the foot recently when they removed the ability to download separate copies of your library of books for storage elsewhere than an Amazon device. This impacted dedicated ebook readers, but normies and casual ebook fans won't likely notice or care about this change. The reason is simply because if you view ebooks as content to consume, or you only buy a few and see Amazon as just fine to trust on managing your library of licenses, or you are a Prime subscriber and don't own most of the content you read anyway, then this change impacts you in no way whatsoever. But if you have a lot of purchased ebooks and don't like the notion that you are merely licensing ebooks as opposed to buying them (and only recently have online vendors been forced to acknowledge this distinction more clearly) then being able to offload them somewhere was pretty important.

If you just want out of Amazon but don't have a Kindle, one place you can support authors without as much draconian Amazon antics is at bookshop.org which aims to provide a venue for physical and ebook sales for indie publishers and authors. So far its slow growing, and its not a one-stop-shop for all your reading needs unless you are extremely particular in what you read, but I have found a few good books over there so far. I do not think bookshop has a dedicated device, but their app works fine on all my android devices so far. It's still nascent in design, and could use some more features, but they are getting there.

For those who are trying to escape Kindle and Fire hardware, there are a lot of interesting choices out there. I gave away my Kindle Fires and regular Kindles, all except for the two I love most: The Kindle Notebook (lovely device) and the Kindle Oasis, which has the best form factor for reading ebooks on eink that I have found to date (until I got in to Kobo and Boox, that is). I continue to maintain my Kindle ebook collection, but I am no longer purchasing books on Amazon unless there is simply no other way to get it; so far I have had no problems finding what I want to read on Nook, of course, and my new other favorite store: Kobo!

Kobo produces a 7 inch color e-reader called the Kobo Libra Color, which is very close in comfort and form factor to the Kindle Oasis, which I love. It's a color ereader, and now that I've experienced e-ink in color its hard to imagine sticking with black and white (but see my comment on the Boox Palma 2 below). Kobo's only problem is it is, like Amazon, locked to their store so I can't load Nook or Bookshop onto it. That said: for a dedicated reader, I find it excellent. Similarly to Nook you can offload books using Calibre, although I haven't tried yet, and also similar to Nook the DRM issues are variable and publisher-specific, so not all books are DRMed. Kobo does seem to want to be a mini Amazon, however, pushing a monthly subscription services that unlocks books, but similar to Amazon's Prime service, the majority of those free reads are not really worth reading, sorry to say. Kobo does manage to keep some excellent competitive pricing and I did join their basic membership for the product discounts, it works similarly to Barnes & Noble's but applies to all ebooks. 

Simultaneously with getting the Kobo I picked up the Boox Palma 2, which is an ereader in the shape of a phone. My first thought was....no way this will be as good to read on as a dedicated ereader, and it will just compete with the unenvious task of using reading apps on my phone, right? Despite this, a lot of reviewers spoke positively of the device and so I decided to check it out. Now I see why they like it....it turns out the size of the Palma 2 (very slightly smaller than my Samsung S24 Ultra phone) is far and away the most comfortable weight and grip for reading on the go, and its small size makes it as easy to carry around as a phone. It's black and white e-ink is crisp and sharp, and its a regular android device so you can load any apps you want on it (but with the caveat that its screen refresh means don't bother with loading anything that requires a decent frame rate, like videos). So I can have the Kobo, Nook, Bookshop and Kindle app all loaded on the device. It even has sound, so I also have the Audible and Chirp apps loaded for audio books. Of the devices I have, I've been using Boox Palma 2 more than any other simply because it is so ridiculously convenient. 

Boox Palma 2 is not ideal for reading comics and graphic novels, and I wouldn't recommend it. If your eyesight is bad, it may not be a good choice because while you can (as with all readers) increase font size, with such a small screen it may become an unpleasant read if you need a really big font. I do not have that problem, thankfully, though I may keep it on a very small font and then just drag out reading glasses, myself. 

All told, my pleasant surprise at how handy and well designed the Boox Palma 2 is has motivated me to seek out one of their larger models, specifically their own notebook color version. I'll talk about that when it arrives. My hope is that it will act as a decent alternative to the Kindle Notebook, which is eminently practical in its effectiveness at being a stylus-based note taker (I use it for gaming regularly, and found it easy to design entire maps on it). 

I did look at one option which I ruled out: reMarkable makes some really nice notebook style tablets, but they are not tied to the android ecosystem and do not let you load apps. I believe you can directly load books onto them from a source such as Calibre, but that's not how I have my collections set up, and so reMarkable sounds like a more expensive and less convenient option for a certain kind of person, so I decided not to check it out.

So this is where I am at in 2025: I have a mess of gadgets (I didn't even mention the Samsung galaxy S9 Ultra, which is really a notebook style PC masquerading as a tablet) and enough variety that I can feel comfortable scooting away from the Amazon ecosystem with no impact to my reading experience....and indeed, I am finding that by embracing Kobo and especially Boox, my overall ebook enjoyment has only improved. I will also give a shout out to the Lenovo Tab M11 as the best full color standard tablet for reading (especially comics and graphic novels), that is also by far the most affordable for its class. Ebooks may become the default for reading going forward as the publishing industry across the board is rocked by the tariff wars, so I can at least know that my embrace of this medium may allow for me to continue to pick up and read the books I want without inflated prices. 

The Print Reconversion (and the Problem of Choice Paralysis and Distraction)

I've been going through a phase lately, and I'm not sure what to make of it yet other than that I've decided to just roll with it for as long as possible. Here's the deal:

I'm back to reading more print books now than I am ebooks.

Yep, I love the tablets (I have approximately 6 of them...that still work, anyway) and hundreds of books in both the Nook and Kindle stores, plus lots more through other venues (Google Play and Aldiko most notably). They offer all the obvious conveniences that tablets do when you are a reader, including:
--Easy to read in the dark
--easy to manipulate the font type and size
--extremely portable and you can bring your entire collection anywhere with no effort*
--Most tablets give you at least 7-10 hours good reading time and the proper ereaders last even longer

I've blogged plenty about my love of tablets, ebooks and their conveniences over the years. So....why am I suddenly mostly reading print books again? And why have I spent a few hundred bucks rekindling my mostly anemic print fiction selection again?

At first it seems counter-intuitive. Hell, some of the books I've read in print recently I also had or at least started reading in ebook format. Sometimes I have tired eyes and need to drag out the reader glasses. I have to find convenient places to sit with light. What the hell, man?

I have some theories, though. Here they are in a nut shell: tablets are awesome, but they suffer from two problems that will eventually get in the way of a good time. These are choice paralysis, a problem of the human condition; and distractions, a problem with how the Google and Amazon electronic marketplace wants to sell you things and barter for your time.

The first one is a known problem that people like to wax philosophical on. It is also known that the ebook market lately has been seeing a downward trend, rather steeper than one might expect. Here's my theory: the traditional form of reader requires a structured mechanism by which one finds a book, claims the physicality of it, eventually reads said book, and then passes it on. Some time can pass before this recycling event happens, and the recycling can be where you trade it in to a used book store or give it to a friend, but the important part is that the book exists in your possession for a time and then leaves, to be replaced by a new book at a future date. It does not linger on your shelf forever (in many cases; biblioholics are a different exception here).

I've always liked being able to read and then recycle a book. I have a bad habit of reading one book and then buying ten, but hey....I can always dream of a future in which I have all the time in the world to read, right?

The problem with this notion is that when applied to the ebook ecosystem, I end up with hundreds, then eventually thousands of books. The ebook ecosystem is also designed to drive cheap sales with $1-3 books, hooking you on tons of casual "this looks cheap, I might want to read that" buys. At some point it becomes easy to have twenty or thirty books in your collection you want to read, another hundred or two you thought you'd want to read in the future, and hundreds of additional books that were so cheap or free you couldn't turn them down. (Yes, this is how biblioholics often function, pity us). Before you know it, your tablet or ereader is actually out of room....and you find yourself stricken with the curse that is a bounty of choices every time you pick up the old tablet to read a new tome.

Right now, I have a selection of print tomes I have gathered together and set myself a nice, snug little goal: I will read these ...ah, approximately 25 books over the coming Summer months. Can I pull this off?  Y'know, I feel more confident about these 25 print tomes than I do the 1,000 odd Nook books staring me in the face every time I load up.

I guess I could "load up" my ebook reading list and refuse to look past the first two pages in the Nook library, but that would require discipline...seriously.

The second problem is (in my personal experience) the greater and more insidious issue, and it really boils down to this: when you have 20 minutes to read, are you going to crack open a book and try to plow through a chapter, or are you going to open up the news feed app, or Youtube, or literally any of a hundred other apps on the tablet that can occupy 20 minutes (and more, you realize) of your time more easily and with less effort? To keep a tablet on task you pretty much need to ditch the Google Play store....and forget about the Kindle Fire, it's awesome and all but is so insidiously designed to sell you content that the book section isn't even the first tab you can choose from.

There are other reasons I've decided to make ebooks my secondary thing and go back to print. One of them has to do with screen glare: at some point I got it in to my head that staring at a bright blue-light emitting screen all the time is probably not the best way to keep my eyes healthy. Never mind that blue-light makes sleep harder (and the red-tinted alternative is unpleasant to stare at), just focusing on so much  light emitting tech is tiring. This is, of course, part of the whole current phenomenon of people trying to reduce "screen time" in their lives and I am feeling that screen-fatigue as well. Hell, I feel it right now in front of my giant PC monitor as I type this. I'll be feeling it at work for 8 hours tomorrow. Maybe, just maybe, I can reduce some of that by not feeling it when I'm trying to read?

There's also a little problem with battery life/shelf life of tablets. One of my Samsung Galaxy S2s is acting a little funny these days, and it doesn't hold much battery life anymore. It is my oldest tablet right now, at about five years of age, so not unexpected.....but the idea that I might want to replace it with an equivalent device (it is a very nice tablet) at a $500+ pricepoint every few years? Nah.

The last reason is insidious but notable. Buried in this article is a compelling point: when you have a tablet in your hand you could be doing all sorts of things, and few of them are reading books. My son is growing up in a world of technology, and he is just now starting to take notice of books, actually enjoy them....but to help him with this, I need to be setting a good example. Tablets don't really let you show a book off, show that you're, you know, actually reading something other than a garbage news feed. They also can't be easily exchanged. You can't hand a good book to your friend to enjoy....even after all this time both Nook and Kindle have been woefully inadequate when it comes to book sharing.

Put another way: physical books allow you to be social in certain ways that ebooks cannot and by design will not let you. This, it turns out, has been really important to me.

Anyway....I never stopped preferring print games and comics, so returning to print fiction and nonfiction isn't really that big a step for me. It will cost me a bit more....but I also feel like I'm returning to a space where I am more likely to spend my money wisely, and not just one the daily bargain basement e-deals. Plus, I get to spend more time actually shopping, in real book stores. There's just something about browsing aisles of books that is immeasurably more satisfying to me than scrolling through random lists of what Nook thinks is relevant. So consider me "back in print!"




*When I started the tablet/ereader journey this seemed like a brilliant notion. Years later I realize I almost never actually get any reading done on most trips, except maybe on the plane; and I've been on the plane only a handful of times in the last several years.

Nook Tablet 10.1 Review: a Damn Fine Machine

Barnes & Noble released the newest Nook earlier this month, and it's already garnering some much deserved attention as a $129 budget tablet for reading. I bought one Friday, and spent the weekend exploring it. For those of you who are like me (a tabletphile? Tablet Hoarder? Tablet fanboy?) the Nook may in fact be a tablet/ereader well worth checking out.

Here are some basic details derived from the new Nook's page:

It's manufactured by southerntelecom, which when you go their site is a Chinese producer of products that are designed for (and branded by) other companies. I have no details on their reliability, but this is worth noting given a couple years ago the very cheap entry-level Nooks briefly cam preloaded with a lot of viruses.

The specs for the device include its processor (MT8167A), which is seen in other Acer and Lenovo type tablets. It has four cores, 2 GB RAM, 32 GB of onboard storage, and an expansion port for MicroSD cards (I have a 128 GB card in my new machine right now). The screen resolution is 1920X1200 and holds up rather well for a 10.1 inch screen. It's otherwise playing in a current version of the Android OS and includes all the normal features you expect, plus an overlay with widgets (that you can remove) that is Nook store friendly.

The tablet has some optional attachments that are really interesting. A docking station lets you watch and work with it as a viewer while the tablet recharges ($34.95) and while you can pick up a $30 cover for it, you'd be crazy to do that when they offer a fantastic cover with magnetic-locking keyboard for $40 that functions very much like the Surface keyboard (powered by the tablet, magnetically connects). Even better the design of the keyboard is amazing. I have large hands, and on my Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 keyboard often accidentally bump the screen while typing, knocking me out of the app or moving the cursor around. This does not happen with the Nook keyboard, which provides enough room and provides an excellent tactile sensation....easily one of the best tablet keyboards I've used so far. The only downside is that it doesn't appear to disconnect the keyboard when you fold it back (very annoying).

The tablet itself is a fully featured android tablet, and you can dive right in to Google Play with all your existing apps. I haven't run across anything (yet) that won't run on the tablet. Other features of the tablet worth noting: it uses a conventional 3.5 mm headphone jack( yay) and it's bluetooth functionality is smooth and I had no issues pairing it with speakers. Basic but important stuff.

Some oddities I have encountered: the system seems to like making you log in twice (once to wake it up when it shows the Nook logo, and again to log in to and OS). It's sound system is not great; you will absolutely want to pair it with some speakers or plug in a headphone set as the onboard speakers are very cheap and tinny. It strikes me as overly sensitive for the touchscreen, and likes to send you places you didn't intend to go. Finally, at least until the system caught up with OS and app updates it was a little wonky maneuvering the Nook store and library, which frequently reset me back to the top. This could be due to my excessive library however, which is almost at 1,000 books now.

All in all, despite those complaints this is a really nice tablet for the price, and an excellent addition to any ereader's collection. Once again, unlike the Kindle options out there, you can load both Kindle and Nook up for access on the tablet, something you can't do with Kindles without jumping through hoops.

MANUFACTURER southerntelecom
BRAND Nook
MODEL BNTV650
PLATFORM mt8167
API 8.1 (27)
WIFI CONSYS_MT6630
CPU MT8167A
CORES 4
FAMILY Cortex-A35
CLOCK_SPEED 598 - 1500 MHz
RAM 2 GB
MANUFACTURER southerntelecom
BRAND Nook
MODEL BNTV650
PLATFORM mt8167
API 8.1 (27)
WIFI CONSYS_MT6630
CPU MT8167A
CORES 4
FAMILY Cortex-A35
CLOCK_SPEED 598 - 1500 MHz
RAM 2 GB
MANUFACTURER southerntelecom
BRAND Nook
MODEL BNTV650
PLATFORM mt8167
API 8.1 (27)
WIFI CONSYS_MT6630
CPU MT8167A
CORES 4
FAMILY Cortex-A35
CLOCK_SPEED 598 - 1500 MHz
RAM 2 GB

Comics on Tablets

With the increasing ease of access to hi-resolution tablets, reading electronic editions of comics is getting easier. In the last few months I've taken to collecting a lot of back-issue trade paperbacks on both the Marvel and DC lineups, as well as using the medium to experiment with third party books (Cyberforce, Savage Sword, Robyn Hood and others to name a few). As a result...I have a few bits of advice and direction to help out those curious about the choices available.

First off: Choice of tablet is pretty important. Make sure you get a hi resolution tablet, and make sure it's noted for how decent the resolution is. The screen size can have an impact as well. For example, my reader of choice is my Nook HD+ which at 8.9 inches with a 1920X1280 resolution screen is fantastic for reading comics. I was enjoying my Asus Transformer Infinity 700T which has a bigger 10 inch screen but roughly the same resolution, and the pairing doesn't work so well; things which are sharp and clear on the Nook HD+ can be muddy on the Asus. So....do your research carefully, but of the various tablets I've tried the Nook HD+ is the best size and resolution for me. If you have youthful eyes and don't mind tiny print you might get away with using a Nexus 7, too.

Second: choice of app is also important. Right now you can buy comics through a variety of mediums. I haven't explored Comixology or Kobo yet, but I have purchased comics on the Google Play, Nook, Kindle and Marvel Comic store apps. Here's my quick run-down on each:

Google Play

Google's comics are hi-res and larger size files. The store is the one you'll be familiar with on Android platforms. There's nothing wrong with Google Play, and it was my default venue for a while, but three problems crop up with it: first, it's very slow to load books. Put them in queue and wait a while. Get too many downloads going and wait a long, long while. Second, not a lot of customization on how to view your library of content. You can't hide former reads, only uninstall and note what's got the little blue circle to indicate what is and isn't loaded. Third and of consequence mostly to Marvel readers, Google's editions of Marvel books are not synchronized to show pages correctly...when you have a double-page splash you can't see both pages at once by turning the tablet on its side, nor does it "shrink" them for viewing at the same time. Big problem.

Google's prices are fairly competitive. Some of their library is a bit pricey compared to the competition, but they mark sales better. Searching for stuff is a weird experience....for a Google product you'd expect their store to show you all the related content you are looking for a bit better. Finally, Google Play does have plenty of Trade editions and is getting lots of DC single issues, too....but no single issues for Marvel.

Marvel Comics

The Marvel Comics app is the best place to find Marvel offerings. They seem to keep some issues and editions in reserve for their store only, and it's the only place to find single issues as well. Marvel's also got a promotional thing in virtually all of their print books where you can get a code that will give you access to an electronic edition of the print book, and sometimes this code includes other free comics or TPBs as well. The downside of the codes is that you pay $4 for a book to get a code for the comic you just read....useful for future reading, I suppose. The stickies that hide the code are also prone to malfunction...about one in five tends to come off wrong, and then it's a guessing game as to what the code actually was supposed to be. Still, it's a cool perk if you like the idea of having e-copies for posterity.

The store itself is a great reader, and includes a feature which lets you tap to highlight specific panels, which works a bit better than the Kindle version of the same (in my opinion) but is just as useless, at least for how I like to read comics (I really prefer a full-page view). Unlike Google Play and Kindle, most of the Marvel comics in the app will correctly display double-page spreads for reading.

The main problem with the Marvel store is price. Most TPBs are discounted, but all single issues are priced at the same cost as a print issue, and rarely seem to get discounted in price. Still, hard to beat as a place to find the occasional issue you can't locate anywhere else.

A second much more serious issue if you travel a lot and are away from wi-fi is that the Marvel Comics app will not work unless you are able to log in remotely. For this reason alone I don't buy on the Marvel Comics store unless I have no other choice. Apparently it's never occurred to Marvel that the main time people read content on a tablet is likely when they are not near a computer, which means that they likely aren't near a convenient wi-fi hotspot. If your circumstances are such that you never find yourself away from a connection this won't be a problem for you, though. For me...it means anything I have on the Marvel Comics app probably isn't accessible when I go on vacation.

Kindle 

The Kindle app is friendly to use and has a wide selection, but its files load fast for a reason: they are lower-resolution smaller files, and show poor quality compared to the other stores I discuss here. Marvel comics also have a "read" problem with double page spreads, and the panel-zoom is a pain to use in my experience. I disliked the Kindle app as a comic reader enough that after trying out Wonder Woman, Hawkman, Five Ghosts, New Avengers and a couple others I gave up and moved on. Even the occasional ridiculous sales prices Kindle offers aren't worth the savings....you will find these unpleasant to read once you're used to the higher quality of the other store apps.

Nook

I'm a Nook fan, but I don't think that overly influences my buying decisions as much as does the fact that their reader rather nicely displays hi-res files, load quickly, is easy to navigate, and also correctly shows double-page splash scenes in all cases I've tried so far. They occasionally have sales, and for some reason I've found books on Nook that aren't on Google Play (they might be on Google Play, but the search engine over there is shady at times). All of the Nook comics I've loaded to date are very nice and clear hi-res copies, too.

Nook's main problem is price....you'll typically pay 50 cents to a dollar more for many titles on their store than Kindle, though they tend to be comparable to Google Play more often than not. As a result, if price is a big issue, I'd suggest Google Play (which will have more discounts over time), but if ease of management for your library as well as good download speeds for bigger hi-res files counts, then stick with Nook. Still, if you stick with Nook then you can avoid supporting the predatory nature of Amazon and stave off the inevitable collapse of the publishing industry into Amazon's hole of mediocrity a little longer.

Summary

It's possible the Kindle works best on the Amazon tablets. It's likely that if Google Play resvises the Google Books app then it will bump up in my estimation...and if you just want Marvel comics then you really do need the Marvel Comics app. But from my experience to date, the Nook store gives you the best and speediest reading experience.

On Amazon and Predatory Pricing

Charles Stross is a very interesting guy. Aside from his brilliant science fiction novels he has a very informative blog, and in this particular entry he discusses the conflict going on between Hachette (a publisher) and Amazon's efforts to force them to comply with what boils down to a dispute over who gets to benefit from the surplus earnings...the distributor (Amazon) or the publisher (Hachette). I won't repeat what Charles has discussed, though, as he talks about it more eloquently and with better information than I.

What is especially interesting to me is his discussion on the predatory pricing model Amazon employs. This is a big answer to me about why prices on the Kindle are always cheaper than prices on the Nook, with only certain big-name publisher titles generally being the exception. He has an earlier 2012 article that discusses the general Amazon strategy and its use of predatory pricing in more detail here.

I've talked about the pricing issue of Amazon vs. Nook in other posts, but reading Charles' entries on the subject has left me with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth towards Amazon. While I like the savings, knowing that that savings comes at a long term cost on the impact of the overall heath and financial well-being of the authors I like is not something that sits well with me. I strongly believe in the necessity of consumers learning to appreciate the value of the creative content which the consume, and as an author myself when I can get the time to devote to it I know it's no small amount of effort to go from reading a good book to actually writing one.

There are still plenty of authors on Amazon's Kindle shop that I can't get anywhere else. If that's the only place I can purchase their goods and support them, then so be it. I haven't yet heard any negative commentary on any Barnes & Noble Nook practices, so maybe I need to just accept that sometimes, for my own personal conscience, the value of saving a dollar or two in exchange for a clean conscience is worth that much. I already do this with Walmart (I do not shop at Walmart except in desperation) so applying that same standard to Amazon isn't too much of a stretch for me.

A Friendly eReader Service Message: on reading comics on tablets, how to speed up your Nook HD+ and other stuff

A few things I have learned about eReaders recently worth noting for those who haven't yet discovered (the hard way):

Reading Comics on eReaders and Tablets:

This one has a few no-brainers, but there's definitely a "test the waters" approach to reading comics on ereaders right now. I've been buying more comics in electronic format lately (mostly the stuff that looks interesting but isn't part of my Batman/DC Universe obsession) and have a bit to say on the subject that may save you some headaches.

First, it goes without saying that you want a decent high resolution tablet for the job. The Nook HD+ is the best bang for your buck in this department, but the Nexus 7 (2013 edition, my son annihilated my 2012 edition) is also rather nice. Larger screen size helps a lot, but a high resolution can accomplish much.

So here's what you want in a good comic ereader:
1. Decent screen resolution
2. Decent screen size; 7 inches on the Nexus is the bare minimum...I get a lot more enjoyment out of the Nook HD+ screen.
3. An app that lets you expand/contract pages
4. A retailer that sells you a decent hi-res copy

So who meets the requirements? Each of the following were tested on my Nook HD+ and Nexus 7. I disqualified the Microsoft Surface as I have the 1st generation basic model, which has a 768X800 resolution, and that's acceptable but below what I consider the minimum standard for a comfortable viewing experience (the 1080p resolution on the Nook HD+ has really spoiled me).

Kindle App and Comics 
Test Files: Uncanny X-Men, Savage Hawkman, Wonder Woman

It borders on the tortuous to read comics on the Kindle App. The only Kindle device I own is the Kindle Paperwhite, and that's not a device you want to use to read comics on (trust me) so I used the Kindle App on the Nexus 7 and Nook HD+ in absence of a Kindle Fire. Unfortunately the Kindle App's strategy for letting you try to read comics on it is a "double tap to expand the panel" feature that basically magnifies roughly where you tapped, and also glaringly shows that the file sizes of the Kindle comics are smaller than the competitor's because they are lower resolution. The Kindle does not let you expand/contract pages nor does it let you take full page spreads and view them length-wise by holding your tablet sideways; you are locked into one view mode, essentially.
Rating: F

Nook Store and Comics 
Test Files: All Star Western, Dungeons & Dragons Graphic Novels, Cutter

The Nook store lets you download decent file sizes quickly, and the resolution is very nice. The reader lets you expand and contract the page as well as view it lengthways by turning the tablet on its side. You may pay a few cents more on average for comics in the Nook store but the quality and ease of use is well worth it.
Rating: A

Google Play Store and Comics
Test Files: Savage Sword of Conan, Fatale, Cyberforce, and lots more

Google Play has the largest download files and it shows: the pages are crisp and look great on the Nexus 7 as well as the Nook HD+, making for the best reading experience by far. The experience was light night and day from the Kindle's lower res, limited functionality editions....and in fact I started this process with Google Play, so the net result was a wave of disappointment at the low quality on the Kindle. The Google Play store often has some decent sales but the prices are, like Nook, slightly higher on average....but the tiny extra cost is well worth the much more satisfying reading experience.
Rating: A+

Anyone who reads comics knows that as a medium the comic artists and writers take advantage of the full page and sometimes two-page spreads for effect. If the ereader can't accommodate this then it's not worth the time. Whoever designed the "panel exansion" idea for the Kindle App doesn't understand that you don't just read "one panel at a time" nor can you really grokk what's going on in a panel when your double-tapping only highlights part of the image. Luckily Google Play and Nook both understand this and offer a better suite of tools to do the job....with Google Play winning out by virtue of it's excellent hi-res (and very large) images.

Next up...

What to do when your Nook HD+ is slow (alias: how to make it work instead of chucking it out a window)

This is a real thing. Apparently many Nook HD+ tablets acted a little...weird....after the updates last year that embedded Google Play into the device. I don't pretend to understand the history of these updates, but if you have a Nook HD+ and it acts like it's operating under an XP-powered OS on a netbook from 2005 riddled with spyware then fear not, there's a quick and easy solution that does not involve violence:

Deregister and Erase in your machine's options, then re-register and download all your stuff again. It works like a charm....I have no idea if that means the updates from last year were staged in a way that led to suboptimal performance or corruption of files to cause a slowdown....or it doing this simply cleared out whatever invisibe homunculi were torturing the poor tablet, but after I did this I had my Nook HD+ back and it runs as smoothly as my Nexus 7. So take this tip to heart!

Shopping Around: Price comparing Nook vs. Kindle storefronts

Some discussion has been had on more than one occasion about the issue of pricing in the Nook and Kindle stores. The general consensus is that the Barnes & Noble storefront for Nook is more expensive on average, and the Kindle usually has slightly better prices across the board. I thought I'd put this to the test with a comparison of books in both storefronts.

To make this work I'm going to compare three sets of titles: popular current titles, new titles, and obscure titles. I tend to buy heavily from option #3 (obscure) and as a result may see more savings on average with Kindle than Nook....or so my buying experience suggests. So lets get on with this!

1st Comparison: Popular Current Titles

For this entry I'll look at the "top listings" for each store and pick a sampling based on subject mater: sci fi/fantasy for our purposes will be the control measure, using the top seller listings on each site as of 1/3/14. To qualify each book below must be on one of the two top seller lists:

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card: Both Kindle and Nook list it for $3.99.

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin: $4.99 on Nook, $3.99 on Kindle.

A Song of Ice & Fire Five Book Set: $19.99 on Kindle, but $28.47 on the Nook. Interestingly, the Nook has the four-book Nook set for $34.99.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss $6.74 on Kindle and $6.74 on Nook.

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien. Kindle has this listed for $7.69 but the one-volume Lord of the Rings set for $10 (bwuh?) while Nook has the same exact prices, including a $10 one-volume set.

Result One: the prices match, with a couple exceptions. Kindle comes out ahead a bit due to Martin's books.

2nd Comparison: New Titles

For this entry I look at "newly listed" to see how the prices on these shiny new tomes appear. The source is this and this list as of 1/3/14. To be on this list it must appear on at least one of the two new lists, and be available now or preorder in both stores. Bias of Note: I am excluding any book that looks like a "urban fantasy vampire chick" novel from the test set:

The High Druid's Blade: The Defenders of Shannara by Terry Brooks. $13.99 on the Nook and $11.84 on the Kindle.

Words of Radiance by Brian Sanderson. $12.74 Kindle edition and $14.99 Nook edition.

The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch (fyi this book sounds very cool). $13.99 Nook and $10.99 Kindle edition.

Halo: Mortal Dictata by Karen Traviss. $9.99 Nook edition vs. $8.89 Kindle edition.

The Walking Dead: The Fall of the Governor Part I by Robert Kirkman. $11.99 Nook edition vs. $9.83 Kindle edition.

Result Two: It's like this across the board....in terms of new, Kindle really wants your dollars, and B&N hasn't quite figured this out apparently.

3rd Comparison: Obscure Titles

I am a master of the obscure, as I expect many tabletop gamers are. What follows are a sample of my library, taken from both the Nook and the Kindle, for comparison:

Heavy Metal Pulp: Pleasure Model by Robert Vardeman. $7.59 on Kindle and $7.99 on Nook.

Revelation Space by Alistair Reynolds. $7.59 on Kindle and $8.99 on Nook.

Resident Evil: City of the Dead by S.D. Perry. $6.59 Kindle vs. $7.49 Nook.

Weird Space I: The Devil's Nebula by Eric Brown. $4.61 on Kindle and $5.49 on Nook.

Punktown by Jeffery Thomas. $5.99 on Nook vs. $3.99 on Kindle.

I tried comparing recent favorites of mine such as Zombie Pulp and The Hive both by Tim Curran but they aren't even on the Nook store it turns out.

Result Three: the Nook isn't as interested in discounting these mostly obscure titles. The selection I picked was random, but I could unfortunately just keep listing and listing and listing...and it would still be the same; virtually all these obscure titles are a bit cheaper on the Kindle.

The question I might pose to those who self-publish and release books through both storefronts is: why is this? What policy is in place that ends up with a higher mark-up on the ebook at B&N than at Kindle? Do authors and publishers have much control of their pricing, and does Nook have a more difficult "discounting structure" than the Kindle, assuming that's a tool available to publishers? Is it just a market share issue? According to a recent article Amazon holds a 67% market share....could this be the reason?

Nook Simpletouch vs. Kindle Paperwhite

It's been a while since I talked about my obsession with tablets and e-readers. When we left off I had picked up a Nook HD+, the big screen version, on their fire sale they had during the summer. Since then I have added a Nook Simpletouch with Glowlight and most recently a Kindle Paperwhite. Yes, I did my tablet buying backwards, getting the big fancy tablets first and regressing to e-ink monochrome readers.

When you're first goal in a tablet is to find a decent e-reader, it turns out regression could well be the norm. If your goal is a clean, easy reading experience with very, very long battery life then picking up a dedicated e-reader is actually the smartest thing you can do. I've hardly done anything with my Nook HD+ or my Nexus 7 outside of browse the web and play games; the experience of reading (even on the very nice HD screens of both devices) is still not as comfortable and friendly as it is on the e-ink readers. The key exception is with PDFs; the bigger tablets with more processing power are much better for PDF reading; don't even try it with the dedicated e-readers.

Both the Nook and Kindle e-ink readers are small and designed to fit in a pocket. Both have smooth capacitative screens that don't pick up finger smudges easily (a major problem for the regular tablets) and both of the editions I have include backlighting for night time reading. Despite some fairly vocal and angry reviews on Barnes & Noble's Simpletouch with Glowlight page link about some sort of "pinpoint light" problem that sounds like a design flaw, I have experienced no issues at all. Both retail for around $120 although I got the Nook on sale for $79.

Rather than look at each separately, I'll do a comparison of a bunch of key features:

Size/Handling: Both are small, fit in a pocket, and are comfortable to hold and use. They both weigh less than most books.

Cover Options: The official Nook covers are leather with two plastic clips to hold the reader in. Lightweight but not inspiring confidence that they will hold forever. The Kindle's official cover is expensive ($40) but it feels like it could take a bullet. The Kindle Paperwhite's official cover also more than double's the device's weight since it includes some metal in the design.

The View Screens: The Nook's screen is responsive and easy to use. The glowlight is unobtrusive, adjustable, and easy on the eyes. The Kindle's screen is a bit less responsive, and sometimes likes to ignore me or do something other than I intended, but does look a tiny bit crsiper. It's glowlight is adjustable as well and also unobtrusive and easy on the eyes. Both screens are smudge resistant; you need to work to get a finger print on these babies.

The O/S & UIs: As dedicated readers you can think of each of these devices as a single piece of hardware built around just one app...the storefront and library for each reader. You can throw DRM-free books on to them (although I haven't attempted this with the Kindle yet) and the books immediately add to your library. I find the navigation of the B&N interface a tad easier, although it's storefront is less informative and friendly than Kindle; if you have seen Kindle's app on another device, this will look the same; B&N's interface is (as always) slightly less friendly. So in this case: ease of navigation goes to Nook, but the shopping experience goes to Kindle.

Extra Buttons: One extra feature of the Nook that the Kindle doesn't have are five buttons. You have two page turning buttons on both sides of the screen (just slight ridged areas) as well as the signature Nook button at the bottom. You don't need to use the page turner buttons; they're just there for people who don't like swiping and tapping the screen, I guess.

Storage: Nook Simpletouch with Glowlight lets you pop an SSD card into a slot for additional storage. The Kindle has 2 GB of onboard storage but no expansion option. Nook wins this one hands down.

Durability: I haven't had to test this part thankfully, but here's some observations: The Kindle is heavier, and while I bet it can take a hit it also feels like enough force could be damaging. The Nook is lighter and has more plastic in it, but does feel like it will bounce...and also it's so lightweight it doesn't feel like a normal drop would do much. Hopefully I won't get a first-hand experience on testing this issue, though!

Reading Experience: awesome on both. I have found both are very easy on the eyes and the light options both devices offer makes night reading very easy. Both offer you ways to choose font sizes and customize your reading environment, although the Nook have a few more features in this regard (such as font choices) than the Kindle does.

Price Value: Both devices are similarly priced, although the Nook's been on sale recently for about $40 less so that can be a plus. Both Amazon and B&N have stores with the usual range of over-priced books as well as bargains, but on average I have found that the Amazon store has better prices than B&N, which unfortunately means that I usually buy 2-3 Kindle books for every B&N book. Note, however, that B&N has more DRM-free options; they have more publishers in their store who elect not to participate in DRM and therefore more of my B&N purchases are something I can port to other devices or store safely away without fear that an update will remove them for unknown reasons.

Conclusion: both the Kindle Paperwhite and Nook Simpletouch with Glowlight are damned fine e-ink readers and impossible to live without if you are a biblioholic who also likes to save trees and avoid eye-strain. I hardly ever read real books anymore (that aren't game books), as the experience is just not as good as the customizable experience that these readers offer. For conventional paperback reading these readers are painfully superior.

If you could pick only one I'd probably have to default to the Kindle if you're primary interest is in a robust storefront with good prices. However if you're willing to pay a tad extra for the books on average (and have more DRM-free choices), but want a slightly more customizable and user-friendly interface then the Nook Simpletouch wins by a hair.

Nook eats B&N Film at 11 - on the long term sustainability of the Nook Tablets and B&N chain stores

Interesting story here, another development in the ongoing woes of Barnes & Noble, the last national retail bookstore chain. I'm not really looking forward to seeing B&N disappear....but I can completely understand why it seems to be going that direction. B&N is indeed cannibalizing itself, was Nook store sales have to pull people away from physical retail chain sales. I haven't bought an actual physical book from B&N now for better than eight months, maybe longer. The last few times I went into their store I simply brought my Nook and purchased the books I wanted on it, instead (it felt crass, but they do encourage this).

You'd think that this is just a transfer of cash flow from physical to virtual storefronts (moving their cheese around), but it sounds like B&N still has bigger problems as the Nook appears not to be as successful as, say, Amazon and it's Kindle. My guess is that Amazon has a general overall advantage with a wider range of ebooks that are competitively priced (you can survive quite nicely on the Kindle with $2.99 titles if you don't mind sticking with second rate authors, smaller publishers or sale items) and of course Kindle has no physical chain of stores to drag it down.

I hardly ever buy physical books anymore, but have a knee-jerk sense that physical book stores are important. I do still go and buy an occasional paperback at Hastings or the local mom and pop book store (Page One, or Titelwave....yeah, not a lot of book stores around here). Despite having the same general love of books that most bibliophiles do --the literal sensation of holding a book...finding a book, and reading it being somehow very significant-- I have to concede that in the last year and a half I have grown heavily dependent on my ereaders. Why? I can adjust the screen lighting, the font size, the type of font...I can make it easier to read for my aging eyes, essentially. I can carry a single tablet reader around and have access to a thousand books in my library. My biggest worry about reading from my tablet is accidental decision paralysis. My second biggest worry is it gets destroyed or lost....but my entire collection exists in the cloud, right? I can re-download without effort. If I lost my physical library in a fire or through some accident, it would be 100% gone. Not so with the ebooks...right?

Maybe, if B&N goes under, this is going to put forth an unfortunate test of the viability of the market for electronic libraries and their sustainability. If B&N went under without a provision for the retention of Nook libraries to purchasers, that could be very bad for the future of electronic retailers who don't use a model where "you buy it, you keep it," like Baen Books. Likewise, if everyone with a Nook suddenly finds its a glorified paperweight or an average Google Play tablet...well, that could be a real blow for electronic readers down the road. I guess B&N is going to be a test case for just how this works out.

As I'm typing this there's an NPR story on the radio talking about B&N and the Nook, suggesting that they plan to consolidate back to dedicated e-ink Simpletouch tablets since those attract serious readers, and that any more dedicated products in the future might come out of a partnership with some entity like Microsoft. That implies that B&N feels that lower Nook tablet sales are driven by a lack of competitiveness in that particular market....and that those who do buy, say, the HD+ are not dedicated readers, thus not contributing to putting money into the Nook Store side of the equation. Interesting.

I actually would pick up a e-ink reader for the Nook but the one I want (with the backlight) has gotten trashed repeatedly online in review after review for having a common glaring "pinpoint light" flaw in its design. Still, the premise that a book store chain which focuses on providing a dedicated reader device and only a reader device, rather than a glorified tablet, sounds sensible. Maybe if B&N realizes that they can't compete in the same space as Google and Apple, that they really only need to beat out Amazon's Kindle...maybe that will be the best way for the business to go. I guess time will tell.

Nook-pocalypse! Microsoft Eyeballs the Nook like a Tasty Hamhock

Just ran across this tidbit: Microsoft is considering buying Barnes & Noble's Nook Media Division (story here). In the document it indicates that B&N has planned to phase out Nook hardware entirely by the end of 2014, transitioning to an App-delivery approach on other devices.

Anyone know of a good app that can strip out the DRM from books?* I have this nervous feeling I'm going to regret having bought so many books through the Nook store soon.....

EDIT: I guess the real concern I have is, "What if the Nook folds? What then of my DRM-locked books?" Sooner or later something like this will happen, and it will be interesting to see both how the event is handled and how people react to it. The public hasn't been burned yet, but all its going to take is one major distributor of electronic entertainment to signal something of a panic. The GOG.com stunt from a few years back was a great indicator of just how potentially vulnerable we are to one of these distribution services going belly up and disappearing.

Luckily, a lot of publishers who sell through the Nook sell without DRM attached, and usually it's stated right there in the ad text. Probably half of my books on the Nook are readable in Aldiko or any other ereader. The rest of them, though? Well, I guess the odds are Nook as an app reader will be around for a long time to come....but it's something to consider for the future. Buy with whoever looks like they're the most generous (no DRM) or most stable (Amazon), I guess.


EDIT #2: I take it back, I do recall a prior event which was fairly disastrous and led to ill will, at least amongst myself and others who were burned by a purchase/merger: Direct2Drive's being absorbed into Gamefly. I, and many others to this day (more than a year after that merger) still can't access many of the games we had purchased through Direct2Drive due to the lack of support or sales agreements (presumably) between those publishers and Gamefly. As of today I still won't shop there, not until they cough up my missing games.

*I am aware of the irony here, that such an action might constitute piracy. Strictly speaking, I expect B&N/Microsoft in whatever agreement they cough up to accomodate their paying customers going forward. Realistically, though, I may take this as a reminder not to be buying anything marked as DRM-locked if I can help it.

Reader Apps: Aldiko, Nook Reader and Kindle Reader Apps

It's been a while since I've talked about tablets and ereaders. Last year I dived in with a Nook Tablet, and in December last year I snagged a Nexus 7 for myself and my wife. My wife has been addicted to the multitudinous menagerie of freemium apps on the Android Marketplace ever since, while I mostly download an occasional cool non-freemium game, lots of reader apps and the Pulse news app (a fine substitute for the morning paper). So far I've probably spent about $100 on Nook apps (not counting ebook purchases) while my wife has spent....well....I try not to think about it. Anyway!

Android apps in the Google Play store include both a Nook app and a Kindle app. The Nook app easily linked to my Barnes & Noble account, giving me access to my full library of titles through the Nook book store. Kindle was a new experience for me, as I had not previously owned a Kindle and had no apps through Amazon's e-store. I downloaded it, found a few freebies, and mused at how their app wasn't nearly as functional as their actual online store was at suggesting alarmingly accurate recommendations for my buying habits. In fact it doesn't offer any suggestions at all. Oversight? Limitation of the app architecture/programming? Patent issue? I have no idea. It's linked to my main account, so that's not excuse.

Aside from these two official apps I downloaded something called Aldiko. The version I have is free, which means an occasional ad pops up (I hardly ever see them, and never when reading a book). The premium version is $2.99 and I may cave and buy it soon. It supposedly includes some extra functionality, including highlight options, note taking a "home widget feature."

Aldiko easily found and imported my Baen Book collection, as well as my Paizo Pathfinder Tales collection. After some experimentation I determined it could import any and all books though the Nook app which were not locked by password DRM (presumably by the publisher), and it was pleasantly surprising to me to see that quite a few of my Nook store purchases were not DRM-locked. Less surprising was how many "big name" titles were.

The Nook reader app, as well as the Nook Tablet software have some decent customization options, but the Aldiko reader app offered a few perks the others didn't. It's not quite as good at reading some epub file formats as the Nook and Kindle apps are, interestingly....but the ability to do a real day/night feature was a plus (Kindle can do this too....Nook's is more like a day/gray feature). For those of you unfamiliar with this, the idea of a day/night feature is whether you are reading black on white or white on black. Nook does an unpleasant "white on gray," while everyone else does the more eye-friendly and possibly power-saving white on black (is it power saving? No idea).

Beyond that Aldiko works well for reading epubs. It even imported some unusual items like my Resident Evil Art Book that I got with RE 6, although it is an inferior experience to using the Adobe Reader app. And by inferior I mean "horrible." None of these ereaders are good at handling PDF files.

Aldiko cannot see any of the Kindle books I have purchased (I've been picking up Tim Curran's amazing novels...always been a fan ever since The Hive), so they won't import. I am not sure but I think Amazon DRM locks all the content it sells, unlike the Nook, which will make exceptions on publisher request.

The Nexus 7 can drain battery life quickly with some games and apps, but so far all three reader apps are modest in power use and you can read on the Nexus 7 for almost (but not quite) as long as on the Nexus Tablet (which gets me around 11 hours on average).

Aldiko does not have an app on the Nexus Tablet, so I couldn't tell you if it can tie accounts between devices to share your library. Nook Reader app does this, of course, so if I start a book on the Nexus 7 and later resume reading it on the Nook Tablet, it will know where I left off on both devices (provided I've got wifi connectivity during this period). I suspect the Kindle App does the same, for those with actual Kindles.

Although I like Kindle's ease of use, I am surprised at its limited functionality for shopping, being used to Amazon's great site online. The Nook Reader app functions almost, but not quite like the Nook Tablet. It's missing a couple conveniences (it doesn't scan for all epub files and group them together like it does on the Nook Tablet, for example) but the store search functionality is identical to and sometimes slightly more efficient than the same feature on their proprietary device. Aldiko, meanwhile, offers a storefront which lets you search several independent online sellers: Smashwords, Feedbooks, O'Reilly and Romance Books. Not the greatest selection....but better than nothing. Still, given it will take pretty much any epub book and make it available, no matter where that book came from (so long as its DRM free), that means you can shop at Baen Books, Crossroad Press, Paizo or wherever you like and just import it manually.

As a gamer, a parent, an avid reader these apps are all immensely useful. Given that they are all free (or have free versions) there's no harm in having access to all three. Aldiko has proven very handy for managing third party purchases and epub titles that are not DRM locked, and I definitely recommend it.