This morning I tried reading the latest issue of Analog on my iPhone, iPad Mini, Fire HD 10, and 7th generation Kindle Paperwhite. However, I’ve yet to buy the paper copy, but I have the Nov-Dec issue to compare electronic reading versus old-school reading. In terms of the size of the text and ease of reading, the paper copy is very similar to the Fire HD 10. Below are screenshots. I’ve tried to resize each to its approximate reading size. Of course, these images will look different on the screen you’re reading this on. So just consider the relative size. I’ve put the screen size for each device.

I couldn’t resize the Paperwhite without making the font look fuzzy, so it should be slightly smaller. All the screenshots were taken at the formatting I used to read. Each device can be adjusted in various ways. On the tablets, you can pinch and spread the image to different magnifications, but that means sliding the image around to read the entire page. That’s inconvenient, and why a reading mode is valuable.

Fire HD 10 – 10 inches

iPad Mini – 8 inches

Kindle Paperwhite – 6 inches

iPhone 13 – 6 inches but long narrow screen

The Fire HD 10 doesn’t seem to allow me to put it in a reading mode, so I have to look at each page like it’s formatted for the magazine. It’s very tiring on my eyes to read the paper magazine or the Fire HD 10. The iPad Mini is a lot easier to read because it offers a reading mode. I made the background beige to help read it at night. However, I don’t really like the double-column mode. The Kindle Paperwhite and iPhone 13 are the most enjoyable devices to read the electronic versions of science fiction magazines. The Kindle’s background doesn’t look nearly as white as the screenshot. The background is gray, and the typeface isn’t dark black but gray. The iPhone 13 is actually the easiest to hold and read, but I wish the text wasn’t quite so narrow. I wonder what it looks like on the iPhone 13 Pro Max?

The progress bar on the Kindle is for the novella I’m reading, “Communion” by Jay Werkheiser and Frank Wu. That’s a nice touch. The Kindle is easy to hold, but not as easy to hold as the iPhone 13. I do most of my reading on the iPhone simply because it’s always near me. However, I might make a great effort to use the Kindle Paperwhite. I generally use the iPad Mini for CBR and PDF files. I got the Fire HD 10 on the cheap hoping it would be great for reading old pulp magazines. I see the pulp pages better on it, but it’s heavy and bulky to hold.

Not only are my eyes getting old, and seeing difficult, but it’s also getting uncomfortable to hold a heavy book or tablet. I love real books, but my aging body prefers ebooks and audiobooks. Ebook reading has come a long way since my first ebook reader, which was a Rocket eBook Reader.

James Wallace Harris 12/10/21

4 thoughts on “All the Ways I Can Read Analog and Asimov’s”

  1. I‘ve been reading on Kindle since its first generation. A very long vacation led to it, as I didn’t want to transport many books. Whenever I’m away from home, the Kindle is coming along. At home, though, I sometimes read the dead tree editions.
    I enjoy that I don’t have to use glasses with ebooks, just tune up the font size and there you are.
    The iPhone pro max is no competition to the kindle for me. Its smaller and uncomfortable in comparison.

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  2. I have a lot of devices to read as you have, and currently I read most in my new Paperwhite 6.8″ (and before with my old 6″), and at night I use the new iPad mini with black background because I cannot suffer any other color as background at night (not even Paperwhite with inverted colours).

    What I use to handle the Paperwhite with one hand is to glue one of those “rings” were you can pass one of your fingers. They are cheap got from Aliexpress, and there are versions that rotates in any direction. I use to glue at the exact center of the device (a Kindle in this case), but you need to find your own way to handle it and glue in your best position.

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