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Is book reading comfortable with the ipad2?

marc55

marc55

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 14, 2011
872
283
Was going to a Nook Tablet in the near future to read books, but since we're getting an ipad2 or Samsung Gaxily Tab 10.1 (Still haven't decided!!), I'm just wondering if any of you find it comfortable or uncomfortable to read books on it.

Thank you
 
It's been discussed a bit, but I always found it to be tolerable. That's the best word to describe the experience. Could be better, but I'm not running to sell the thing because of it.
 
marc55 said:
Was going to a Nook Tablet in the near future to read books, but since we're getting an ipad2 or Samsung Gaxily Tab 10.1 (Still haven't decided!!), I'm just wondering if any of you find it comfortable or uncomfortable to read books on it.

Thank you
Click to expand...
I don't find it uncomfortable, but the text obviously isn't as sharp as on an iPhone 4 or 'real' e-reader.
 
It's comfortable enough for it not to warrant buying another piece of hardware, thus saving me money and clutter ;)

I've a few books on the Kindle app and read papers on it on a daily basis and it's good enough for that for me.
 
i don't have any problems reading on it - magazines, ebooks, pdfs, comic books. but there are some people who find it uncomfortable reading off a lcd tablet display.

a co-worker bought an ipad1 from another colleague and he said that he gets headaches when he tries to read off the ipad. go figure.


marc55 said:
Was going to a Nook Tablet in the near future to read books, but since we're getting an ipad2 or Samsung Gaxily Tab 10.1 (Still haven't decided!!), I'm just wondering if any of you find it comfortable or uncomfortable to read books on it.

Thank you
Click to expand...
 
I have no problems reading on the iPad 2. I read books, magazines and of course websites and I really enjoy it.

I definitely wouldn't buy something else for that purpose since I already have the iPad.

My wife had a Kindle before we got the iPad 2s and I don't believe she has picked it up since we bought them and uses the Kindle App exclusively.
 
I've been reading "The Objective-C Programming Language" on the iPad. I've also been reading "Collected Short Stories" Vol. 4 by Robert Shekley. After getting used to the somewhat low screen resolution I find the iPad a comfortable eReader as long as I hold it in "portrait" orientation.
 
I've got an iPad 2, a Nook Tablet (sold an older Nook Color for it) and a non-backlit Kindle.

Of the three, the Kindle is the best reading experience in optimal lighting conditions with ambient light (no book light). Outdoors, its about the ONLY eReader that is comfortable to use.

For indoor reading, especially in bed, I find the Nook Color to be the superior reading experience to both the iPad 2 and the Kindle. The fonts are razor sharp, there's no weird glare from the booklight you'd need to use for the Kindle and its just so much lighter/easier to hold and read than the iPad 2. More than once I've been lying down in bed reading the iPad 2 and dropped the thing forward to smack myself in the face. That hurts.

But if I had to only have ONE device to serve all my tablet consumption needs, it would still be the iPad 2. Fortunately...I don't have to choose and thanks to Nook and Kindle apps, I can keep all three devices in synch and just pick the toy for the job.
 
10 people will give you 10 different opinions. I read 1+ books a week on the iPad (have done so since April 2010) between my daily train commute and other spare time. It's been fine for me. I also have a few Kindles in the family (kept handing down old ones as the new ones came out). I only use the Kindle outdoors for beach/pool reading. I hate the Kindle indoors because you really need good lighting for it.
 
I read text/tech books on the iPad and find it more comfortable than a DTB (dead tree book) or a computer screen. For these larger format books, where the layout of charts and graphs is actually important, the iPad is great while a Kindle is just horrible.

For pleasure reading I prefer my eInk Kindle to the iPad. I find the thinner, lighter Kindle more comfortable to hold for long periods and I like the eInk display. If I hadn't had the Kindle before I bought my iPad, I don't think I would feel the need to buy one. It's not that the iPad is particularly uncomfortable, just that the eInk Kindle is excepional for this type of reading.
 
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poloponies said:
10 people will give you 10 different opinions. I read 1+ books a week on the iPad (have done so since April 2010) between my daily train commute and other spare time. It's been fine for me. I also have a few Kindles in the family (kept handing down old ones as the new ones came out). I only use the Kindle outdoors for beach/pool reading. I hate the Kindle indoors because you really need good lighting for it.
Click to expand...

Agreed. OP should test it out at an Apple store or something. I read exclusively on my iPad's Kindle app. My actual Kindles have all been sold or given away. No issues whatsoever with any so-called fuzzy text or headaches from reading off of a backlit screen.
 
It works fine for me. I take it in the backyard to read on saturdays or read in bed most every night before sleeping. The text is sharper than what you see on your laptop but not as good as that on an iPhone. It helps to have a little ambient light in the room. A nice thing is that you can scale up the font size to whatever is comfortable for your eyes.
 
Get a kindle or nook ereader. While iPad 2 will do just fine for basic reading, it is not very comfortable. And going to the Apple store and reading for 15 minutes won't do the trick. You need to read for at least half an hour to feel the difference of LCD screen and Amazon Kindle.
 
iPad 2 works perfectly as e-book reader for me.

Gave my mom the old iPad, and she loves reading on it.
 
i use both the iPad and a kindle, it just depends on what, where and when
i find the e-ink kindle easy on the eyes, easy to hold for days on end, and the charge lasts a lifetime
for any color the iPad cannot be beat (even over the new fire) it's easy to read magazines and comics, i usually don't have to zoom in with newspapers and if it has a stand i can read no hands while eating breakfast

both have to be experienced by the user in order to make a valid decision, but whichever you choose...enjoy
 
Love reading magazines and news articles on the ipad. The color, audio, and visuals some publishers support are awesome. For longer readings, like novels, I still prefer my Kindle.
 
I've never really had any issues with reading on my iPad2. I guess you'd have to get used to reading on an LCD screen, but it works just fine in my opinion. I load up books, magazines and newspapers on my iPad2 and read on it daily :)
 
It's a pretty crappy reader IMO except there are some advantages and work arounds. Use the Kindle reader app, it has a feature where you can make the background black and the text white, you can further change the brightness of the white text independent of the background brightness, this makes reading books MUCH better. With the kindle app set up right I'd say reading books on the ipad is pretty awesome, the only caveat is the shiny screen, don't be reading when any light is reflecting off your screen or you won't be able to read anything. Reminds me of the commercial with the couple at the beach, one has a kindle and the other an ipad.

Where the crappy experience comes in is PDF reading. You just can't manipulate them the same way you can a regular mobi file, it just seems you are always zooming in and out and adjusting things to be able to read. I have a lot of medical books on PDF and it's a pain sometimes to read thru them straight thru, BUT you cannot argue the advantage of not having to lug around 100 lbs. worth of medical textbooks, and also being able to annotate them and such. If I'm at home and at my desk I'll usually read the regular book instead of a PDF, but if I'm away from my home, or if I'm even just in bed then I will settle for the PDF file.
 
The only time it's at all uncomfortable to me is reading for too long in total darkness. But the nook tablet isn't e-ink either, so I assume it'd have the same problem.

----------
spinedoc77 said:
It's a pretty crappy reader IMO except there are some advantages and work arounds. Use the Kindle reader app, it has a feature where you can make the background black and the text white, you can further change the brightness of the white text independent of the background brightness, this makes reading books MUCH better. With the kindle app set up right I'd say reading books on the ipad is pretty awesome, the only caveat is the shiny screen, don't be reading when any light is reflecting off your screen or you won't be able to read anything. Reminds me of the commercial with the couple at the beach, one has a kindle and the other an ipad.
Click to expand...

Triple-click the home button to turn your whole screen negative for white-on-black in any app.
 
spinedoc77 said:
Where the crappy experience comes in is PDF reading. You just can't manipulate them the same way you can a regular mobi file, it just seems you are always zooming in and out and adjusting things to be able to read. I have a lot of medical books on PDF and it's a pain sometimes to read thru them straight thru, BUT you cannot argue the advantage of not having to lug around 100 lbs. worth of medical textbooks, and also being able to annotate them and such. If I'm at home and at my desk I'll usually read the regular book instead of a PDF, but if I'm away from my home, or if I'm even just in bed then I will settle for the PDF file.
Click to expand...

Totally agree on the difficulty of working with PDF files, but wouldn't that be the same (or even worse) on an e-ink reader? I thought the discussion was about the differences between e-ink vs backlit LCD, not PDF vs epub/mobi/html.
 
Night Spring said:
Totally agree on the difficulty of working with PDF files, but wouldn't that be the same (or even worse) on an e-ink reader? I thought the discussion was about the differences between e-ink vs backlit LCD, not PDF vs epub/mobi/html.
Click to expand...

Readability of PDFs is hardly an Apple/iPad issue. And they are awful on e-ink readers, especially where color is involved (just a big mess of grays makes it even harder to read).
 
I love reading on the iPad. Especially with the backlit screen I love the fact that I can read in bed and not bother my boyfriend with a light source.
 
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