Amazon tablet announcement

[Edward Crosby]

Still too small.

http://engt.co/pHWFkB

Why must these manufacturers continue to build and sell a 7" device and call it a tablet? It may be perfect for reading books but for tablet functions a device needs to be at least 10".

----------------------------------------
Have a Better One,
Edward Crosby
http://about.me/edwardcrosby

[Jason Service]

The running joke with the St Pete geeks is that Jen and my Droid X phones are tablets due to their size...(grumble grumble, iPhone devotees, grumble grumble)

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[Cary Preston]

Because Jobs said it was a bad idea and everyone wants to prove him wrong. 

Seriously, it is a noticeable product differentiator. Something visibly "not ipad". For the Kindle it might be ok due to the primary purpose- reading. It mimics the dimensions of a hardcover or magazine better than a 10 inch screen. 

Sent from my iPhone

--

[Cary Preston]

Haters gonna hate...

Sent from my iPhone

[Luke Jaconetti]

I like the pricepoint, but at 7" I think it will be too small to be a
comic reader, which is the main thing I am looking for in a tablet. I
believe Ed has said in the past that the 7" is passable but not good
for comics.

On Sep 28, 10:31 am, Cary Preston <cwpres...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Haters gonna hate...
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Sep 28, 2011, at 10:19 AM, Jason Service <ser...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > The running joke with the St Pete geeks is that Jen and my Droid X phones are tablets due to their size...(grumble grumble, iPhone devotees, grumble grumble)
>

> > On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 10:15 AM, Edward Crosby <ecro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Still too small.
>
> >http://engt.co/pHWFkB
>
> > Why must these manufacturers continue to build and sell a 7" device and call it a tablet? It may be perfect for reading books but for tablet functions a device needs to be at least 10".
>
> > ----------------------------------------
> > Have a Better One,
> > Edward Crosby
> >http://about.me/edwardcrosby
> > --
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>
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>
> - Show quoted text -

[Luke Jaconetti]

Apparently DC thinks the Kindle Fire is perfect for their comics.

http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com/2011/09/29/dc-entertainment-digital-graphic-novels-available-exclusively-on-the-newly-announced-kindle-fire/

> > > For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/theuniquegeek?hl=en.-Hide quoted text -
>
> > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

[Edward Crosby]

Interesting.

Now, as I am mentioned before, I have a Pandigital Novel 7" "tablet" that I have loaded Android on that Pandigital has actually provided via their site. I have been using it to read digital comic books but I don't find it an enjoyable experience. Maybe it's mostly because I'm old and partially blind but I have a very difficult time reading comic books on the 7" screen. Sometimes the word bubbles are just too small to read and I usually have to magnify it via the application I use (Android Comic Viewer).

Now, using the ComiXology app may be a little bit of a different experience. I meant to post this earlier but I've been slammed today at work. I posted a video of the ComiXology app over on my G+ account earlier this morning but this was something I experienced on my PC with a 22" monitor and also on my media PC plugged into my 37" LCD TV monitor yesterday. This video is from my PC with the 22" monitor:

http://bit.ly/qiXrOH

I guess I will try reading the Firestorm comic later today on ComiXology on the 7" Pandigital to see if the experience is different. I tried yesterday before reading the issue on my TV but it would never download to the application on the Pandigital. I'm sure it would have eventually but I was too impatient.

----------------------------------------
Have a Better One,
Edward Crosby
http://about.me/edwardcrosby

[Michael Bailey]

It's kind of funny how my mind has changed when it comes to digital comics.  I used to be totally against it and would sit in my room hugging my comic boxes while rocking back and forth saying, "Never give them up...never give them up..."  Over the past year or so I have gone through some changes when it comes to the number of comics I own and digital comics look a lot more appealing.  There is something cool about being able to store comics digitally and load them on a tablet of some kind, sitting in a comfy chair or in bed and reading without worrying about having a stack o' comics to deal with.  The problem is that I am worried that I may not like the experience for reasons similar to Ed's.  What if it sucks?  So I am going to wait and see if there is another reason to justify the expense of a tablet.

It does look cool though.

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This post/e-mail was written by Michael Bailey, Superman Apologist

[Edward Crosby]

Well, there are definitely advantages and disadvantages to digital comics that I have found over the past few months. I found one of the many advantages yesterday, besides the storage aspect, in that I was able to buy The Fury of Firestorm instantly instead of having to wait to get to my local comic book store that is so far away knowing that I would not be able to get there for a couple of weeks or so. In the case of Firestorm, I wanted to read it as soon as it was available, not wait for a couple of weeks. I still plan on buying it from my LCS in analog format.

----------------------------------------
Have a Better One,
Edward Crosby
http://about.me/edwardcrosby

[Luke Jaconetti]

If nothing else I would like to put all of my CBRs of Iron Man and
Hawkman on a tablet which I could just bring with me and read without
having to break out my back issues. I don't know that I would go
whole hog into buying new comics in digital format, but for back
issues I think it would make a nice compact package.

On Sep 29, 1:07 pm, Edward Crosby <ecro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, there are definitely advantages and disadvantages to digital comics
> that I have found over the past few months. I found one of the many
> advantages yesterday, besides the storage aspect, in that I was able to buy
> The Fury of Firestorm instantly instead of having to wait to get to my local
> comic book store that is so far away knowing that I would not be able to get
> there for a couple of weeks or so. In the case of Firestorm, I wanted to
> read it as soon as it was available, not wait for a couple of weeks. I still
> plan on buying it from my LCS in analog format.
>
> ----------------------------------------
> Have a Better One,

> Edward Crosbyhttp://about.me/edwardcrosby

>
> On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 12:45 PM, Michael Bailey

> <supermanear...@gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
>
> > It's kind of funny how my mind has changed when it comes to digital
> > comics.  I used to be totally against it and would sit in my room hugging my
> > comic boxes while rocking back and forth saying, "Never give them up...never
> > give them up..."  Over the past year or so I have gone through some changes
> > when it comes to the number of comics I own and digital comics look a lot
> > more appealing.  There is something cool about being able to store comics
> > digitally and load them on a tablet of some kind, sitting in a comfy chair
> > or in bed and reading without worrying about having a stack o' comics to
> > deal with.  The problem is that I am worried that I may not like the
> > experience for reasons similar to Ed's.  What if it sucks?  So I am going to
> > wait and see if there is another reason to justify the expense of a tablet.
>
> > It does look cool though.
>

> >> On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 10:18 AM, Luke Jaconetti <ljac...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> >>> Apparently DC thinks the Kindle Fire is perfect for their comics.
>

> >>>http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com/2011/09/29/dc-entertainment-digital-grap...

> >http://groups.google.com/group/theuniquegeek?hl=en.- Hide quoted text -

[Scott D Hamilton]

On Wednesday, September 28, 2011 10:30:53 AM UTC-4, cwpreston wrote:

Because Jobs said it was a bad idea and everyone wants to prove him wrong. 

Seriously, it is a noticeable product differentiator. Something visibly "not ipad". For the Kindle it might be ok due to the primary purpose- reading. It mimics the dimensions of a hardcover or magazine better than a 10 inch screen. 

I'm not sure what magazines you read (Readers Digest? Video Watchdog? Old 1990s issues of Asimov and Skeptical Enquirer?), but a 7" screen is significantly smaller than 99% of what you'll find on a news rack. Even the 10" screen of the iPad is about 80% the size of a single page of a standard comic book (or a standard hardcover), and comic books are smaller than most magazines. I'm more than a little perplexed by Amazon's decision to push the Fire as a magazine and comic reader because it is clearly not going to be a good device for that purpose, even for magazines with tablet versions like Wired. Remember, the measurement of diagonal screen size is not proportional to the screen area, which is what really counts. When it comes to screen area a 7" tablet is not 70% as big as a 10" one, it's about 50% as big as one. The Fire's screen is going to be about 30% the size of a standard magazine, if my back-of-an-envelope math is right.

That's why I find DC's announcement doubly perplexing. What format are those collections going to be in? Not Comixology I assume, because that company is, much to their credit, trying hard to be platform agnostic. So I guess the collections are going to be in the mobi/amazon or epub format, which means you'll be displaying one page at a time, and that page will be quite a bit less than 50% the size of the print version! Maybe they'll have some sort of magnification function (currently mobi doesn't support that, but I guess Amazon can change it), but no matter how you cut it, that's going to be a pretty frustrating experience. See that picture of the Fire on DC's announcement? That's bigger than life size by quite a bit, and they've zoomed into the page! What about double page spreads? In landscape mode a double page spread is barely readable on an iPad, so it will be completely unreadable (3.5 inches tall!) on the Fire.

(I also assume that saying that Batman: Arkham City is available for the first time digitally is a typo, because that's been day-and-date since issue #1 on Comixology. I guess they meant to say Batman: Arkham Asylum, but three days later they still haven't corrected the blog post. Also, what's the collection "The Joker" supposed to be? I wonder if this whole deal with the Fire wasn't hacked together at the last minute, because no part of it appears to have been thought out well, including the announcement itself.)

Please note, I'm not saying the Fire will be a failure. I think it's going to do quite well. It's going to be a pretty damned good Kindle, with some tablet functionality on the side. It will do video as well, even if the image will be on the small side. Amazon is clearly trying to carve out a piece at the low end of the market, where they won't be competing directly with the iPad. But when it comes to magazines and comics Amazon seems to be really overselling the device's capabilities. Some pundits are predicting that means Amazon will eventually release a 10" tablet of their own (a Fire DX?), but that's not really an excuse to give people a crappy experience now.

[Edward Crosby]

Again, further extending my continued belief that a 7" "tablet" is not ideal for a comic book reader.

With the saturation of Android tablets in the market, I wish some multimillionaire out there would build an Android tablet ideal for comic book reading (10" and/or up) and do a deal with the comic book publishers to publish all their comic books to digital format. Even using ComiXology as the means would be fine with me.

Of course, I'm dreaming and know that it will never happen...unless I win one of them megaball or powerball lotteries. I would do it in a heart beat.

----------------------------------------
Have a Better One,
Edward Crosby
http://about.me/edwardcrosby

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[Luke Jaconetti]

> (I also assume that saying that Batman: Arkham City is available for the
> first time digitally is a typo, because that's been day-and-date since issue
> #1 on Comixology. I guess they meant to say Batman: Arkham Asylum, but three
> days later they still haven't corrected the blog post. Also, what's the
> collection "The Joker" supposed to be? I wonder if this whole deal with the
> Fire wasn't hacked together at the last minute, because no part of it
> appears to have been thought out well, including the announcement itself.)
>

Scott, good points about diagonal screen measurements and formats.
Perhaps the comics will be in a new format which the Fire will be able
to read which can handle zoom and whatnot? I guess we will find out
soon enough.

I want to respond and say that I am assuming the listing for "The
Joker" is going to be the Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo Joker
Graphic Novel.

http://www.dccomics.com/dcu/graphic_novels/?gn=10157