Which to buy for viewing Manga anfd Comics?

[tehashi]

Hey all.

I was just wondering which would be better (iLiad or Reader) for the reading of Manga.

I know the iLiad has a bigger size so it would show the graphics and such btter, but it also has limited availability (see: price :-j) and i still do not know how the two compare truley, eventhough i have been reeding the 'vs' posts for a bit.

As for the Reader, i have seen one in person and was a tad dismayed. the book they had on for example had some graphics with word descriptions in them, but the words were shrunk to unreadability. Will this happen with manga as well?

I have not used any of the conversion programs so i am not sure how those go, but i would appreciate any opinions, thanks.

It's very, very sad if displaying manga and comics is one of your primary worries on an expensive device like th Sony or even more expensive device like the Iliad.

(Quietly closes directory with over 250 coverted issues of both.... )

To be honest, after looking at all three ways to view them electronically I would say tablet>Iliad>Sony (but to be honest, only had a couple days to look at the Iliad).

Tablet of course will have the best image and resolution as well as the most options for viewing.

The Iliad is 16 grey scale which is more than good for most color comics to still look good and more than enough for most manga and B&W graphics. The larger resolution size (1024 x 768) means less detail is lost during converting and display when compared to the Sony (800 x 600) meaning more fine details and some fonts are visible.

The Sony is a 4 grey scale which is still surprisingly good for some color and most B&W graphics. The smaller resolution and size does make a noticeable difference though on the final viewing for PDFs (mostly with some finer fonts being hard to read).

As you can find out reading from the Wiki (button at the top of the page) and through out the various threads, there are several good utilities for cleaning up images and PDFs that work very well in making files look much better for display. They work well enough that MOST of the inherent problems that come with a smaller, lower res screen can be mitigated.

I have a Sony ereader, seen the Iliad (love that display and ergonomics), tested the same mangas on both. Final opinion: with proper formating and conversion, the Sony is a good device for manga with font display being the biggest problem due to some fonts used while the Iliad is a better display for this purpose with all fonts being readable and more detail showing.

Having said that, is the Iliad 3x better (being the cost of an Iliad to the Sony)? Not for me. I like the Iliad. I really, really do. Unfortunately being Stateside I can't find a way for me to justify the higher price plus shipping as well as the overseas service required if something goes wrong. Not just for entertainment. This would probably be a different story if there was a U.S. vendor but at this time there isn't.

[jæd]

Well... The Iliad has a better screen, and you don't need to spend so much time to reformat cbr files (although it helps). If you have your own comics which you are scanning then it will be easier to transfer if your scanning can output pdf...

The Reader appears very useful as a Connect Store reader, but unless it starts selling manga, I don't it will be as easy as reading on an Iliad anytime soon...

[Azayzel]

While I don't have an Iliad for reference, I have converted quite a few manga for viewing on my Reader and cannot really complain. While some may bring up the issue of the low grey-scale table, this is really a non-issue with mangas though may pose a problem with color comics, depending on the downscaling used to when converting them to grey-scale. When it comes to prices vs features, imo the Reader takes the Iliad as it is fairly lower in price, has the benefit of a much greater battery life, and has instant-on. When it comes to screen size, the Iliad has the Reader beat; wish Sony marketed a larger screen version, esp. for my PDF's! But until then the Reader will have to do.

BTW In regards to manga, the predecessor to the Reader, the Librie was designed with manga in mind. However, if you want to view American-size comics, your best bet may be the Iliad; though I'll stick with my TabletPC (esp. in regards to cost vs features) for this and wait for a larger, color screen version of the Reader for that.

[tehashi]

I guess i should have also noted that i would be using to read college text books. I have several biology and physics books that can be heavy on graphics. Will a Reader handle them well? since it looks like that is what i will be getting.

With THAT little addition, I would say no to the Sony. It's more of a "casual reading" device than a tool. It has no search abilities, no real indexing, no marginalia and the page size would make textbook pages problematic.

I would say an Iliad at the least and would actually recommend more of a low-end tablet PC (form factor, handwriting recognition, multipurpose) or notebook PC (low cost, multipurpose) for educational purposes.

[Azayzel]

I agree, adding textbooks ups the ante and would probably rule out the Iliad and Reader both (their screens aren't large enough to accomodate the textbook pages and graphics), you'd be better off with a TabletPC, slate-model, for your requirements.