MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Japanophile / manga otaku

Shadowlord · 10-21-2012, 07:45 PM

I'm trying to decide between buying a Kindle Paperwhite and a Kobo Glo. As a Japanophile I'm unsure which device is better suited for me. My thoughts:

Manga:
I already have a 10 inch Android tablet which is sometimes too big and heavy to carry around. So an E-Ink-reader could be an alternative. How comfortable is reading manga on those new devices anyways? Does the higher resolution compared to other readers help or is the display just too small?

The Kobo Glo can read cbz and cbr which seems to be a great advantage. I could also easily expand the memory of the Glo with a Micro SD card (manga tend to be much bigger than regular books).

The Paperwhite doesn't support those comic formats so I'd have to convert them. This shouldn't be a problem, since I'd have to cut off white margins before putting them on any of those readers (I guess), so I can simply save my manga in mobi format when I do that. The missing SD slot could still be a fun killer, though...

How does that new panel view mode of the Paperwhite work? How useful is it? As far as I understand, with panel view you can tap on the panel of a manga and it zooms in for better reading.
Does this work with any sideloaded manga in .mobi format? Panels need to be detected automatically, I think. Otherwise it would just be a simple zoom-in of the complete page. Or is it necessary to prepare manga in a special way? Or does this just work with manga bought from the Kindle store?

Japanese books:
And which one is better suited for reading Japanese books? Paperwhite and Glo both have support for horizontal and vertical texts with ruby support.

But which one has better dictionaries? The Kobo only has a JP<->JP dictionary, right? On the Paperwhite there seems to be a JP<->JP and an EN->JP dictionary available and you can add new dictionaries for JP->EN. This should help A LOT when reading Japanese texts.

The Paperwhite can also translate whole sentences via Bing Translations. I know, those translations are quite bad, but it‘s better than nothing, right?

Store:
Kobo already has a Japanese ebook store, but it is restricted to Japan (georestrictions), so it's essentially useless for me. The only option is to get books from other retailers.

There's no Japanese Kindle store yet, but it is in preparation and I don't think it will be restricted like the Kobo store. So it should be possible to buy Japanese books and manga at the Kindle store in the near future.

Sorry, this text has gotten quite long, it seems

.
So, what are your thoughts on reading Japanese books / manga on Kindle Paperwhite vs. Kobo Glo?

10-21-2012, 07:45 PM	#1
Shadowlord Junior Member Posts: 6 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2012 Device: Kindle Paperwhite	Japanophile / manga otaku – Kobo Glow or Kindle Paperwhite? I'm trying to decide between buying a Kindle Paperwhite and a Kobo Glo. As a Japanophile I'm unsure which device is better suited for me. My thoughts: Manga: I already have a 10 inch Android tablet which is sometimes too big and heavy to carry around. So an E-Ink-reader could be an alternative. How comfortable is reading manga on those new devices anyways? Does the higher resolution compared to other readers help or is the display just too small? The Kobo Glo can read cbz and cbr which seems to be a great advantage. I could also easily expand the memory of the Glo with a Micro SD card (manga tend to be much bigger than regular books). The Paperwhite doesn't support those comic formats so I'd have to convert them. This shouldn't be a problem, since I'd have to cut off white margins before putting them on any of those readers (I guess), so I can simply save my manga in mobi format when I do that. The missing SD slot could still be a fun killer, though... How does that new panel view mode of the Paperwhite work? How useful is it? As far as I understand, with panel view you can tap on the panel of a manga and it zooms in for better reading. Does this work with any sideloaded manga in .mobi format? Panels need to be detected automatically, I think. Otherwise it would just be a simple zoom-in of the complete page. Or is it necessary to prepare manga in a special way? Or does this just work with manga bought from the Kindle store? Japanese books: And which one is better suited for reading Japanese books? Paperwhite and Glo both have support for horizontal and vertical texts with ruby support. But which one has better dictionaries? The Kobo only has a JP<->JP dictionary, right? On the Paperwhite there seems to be a JP<->JP and an EN->JP dictionary available and you can add new dictionaries for JP->EN. This should help A LOT when reading Japanese texts. The Paperwhite can also translate whole sentences via Bing Translations. I know, those translations are quite bad, but it‘s better than nothing, right? Store: Kobo already has a Japanese ebook store, but it is restricted to Japan (georestrictions), so it's essentially useless for me. The only option is to get books from other retailers. There's no Japanese Kindle store yet, but it is in preparation and I don't think it will be restricted like the Kobo store. So it should be possible to buy Japanese books and manga at the Kindle store in the near future. Sorry, this text has gotten quite long, it seems . So, what are your thoughts on reading Japanese books / manga on Kindle Paperwhite vs. Kobo Glo?