Quote:
Originally Posted by lilman
You don't want anything smaller than 9.7" for manga. I tried a Sony PRS-505 at first (6") and although the screen was beautiful it was too small for manga... I was getting eyestrain trying to read the tiny text bubbles on it.
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Indeed, there's no substitute for size. Unfortunately, it's hard for people to visualize the difference between e-ink screen sizes (e.g. - going from 6" to 8.1" isn't something like a +30% increase in screen area, as one might think, given the same aspect ratio it's +80%). Using the dimensions (making 1mm=1 pixel in my paint program) listed at the
MobileRead Wiki, I came up with this comparison.
Notes:
- The manga page had no whitespace and it was reduced maintaining the same aspect ratio (i.e. without distortion) and fit to the screens so that nothing got cut off. This meant whitespace was created in most cases because of the difference in aspect ratio.
- The Sony PRS-900 has a tall & skinny aspect ratio that limits a manga page to the width, which isn't all that much bigger than the 6" devices.
- All the other screens below 9.7" are wider than necessary for a typical manga page and show whitespace on the sides.
- 9.7" (140 × 203mm) screens have exactly the correct aspect ratio (no whitespace).
- In practice, the screen area will be reduced and the aspect ratio changed due to status/menu bar(s) on the top and/or bottom of the screen.
I hope this helps. Personally I find the DR800 big enough for most manga pages (Kolenka's CBZ viewer is great). But size really does matter. If you can get something bigger that fits all your needs in other areas as well, go for it. I'll probably be reading most of my future manga on the eDGe, either in the Droid Comic Viewer on the 10" LCD side or converted to PDF on the 9.7" e-ink side (the DPI is much higher there - 160 vs 72 I think). Unless I want the manga on something more portable, and then it'll be the DR800.