(Image credit: Tom's Guide)
The best Kindles have been my primary way to read books for the better part of a decade. Thanks to Amazon’s e-reader, I’ve read more books in the past seven years than in the nearly four decades prior. Not only is the device easy to hold and read on, but its integration with the Kindle app and store gives me more books than I could read in a single lifetime.Though I adore my Kindles, I don’t read comic books on them. Even after the introduction of the Kindle Colorsoft, which finally let me read comics in color, I still can’t bring myself to read comics full-time on Amazon's hardware. Why? Because, as a lifelong comic book fan, I get a much better experience on the best iPads. Here’s why.Display size
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)Digital comic apps like Marvel Unlimited and DC Universe Infinite offer a guided view mode that zooms in on individual panels and text. This can be immersive, especially for those new to the medium. While guided mode works as advertised, I prefer seeing an entire comic page rather than breaking it up piece by piece.On the base Kindle and Kindle Paperwhite, you almost have to use guided mode because of their small screens. For comics, I prefer reading on the iPad Pro. The 13-inch model’s screen is slightly larger than a physical comic book page. Not only do single pages look fantastic, but double-page spreads look incredible when you rotate the tablet to landscape orientation.Another problem with using guided view or pinch-to-zoom on Kindles is the device’s low refresh rate. This causes the e-reader to lag and flash to clear previous image artifacts (ghosting). While this has improved with the latest Kindle models, the refresh rate is still sluggish compared to iPads, which handle panning and zooming instantly and smoothly.Returning to screen size, the Kindle Scribe features a roomier 10.2-inch display. While that’s still smaller than the 11-inch iPad Pro and iPad Air models, it’s a good size for reading full comic book pages. There’s a specific reason I don’t use the Scribe for traditional color comics (which I’ll cover next), but for black-and-white manga, it’s legitimately great. However, since I don’t read much manga, that point is mostly moot for me.When it comes to reading single pages and double-page spreads of a traditional American comic book, the iPad is simply the way to go.Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips.Colorsoft is still too muted
