Ink entertainment and reading on the Q1

I'm sifting through the reader scenarios you provided and trying to lump them together for ease of reading (and writing), so this morning I pulled up "The DaVinci Code" in eReader and snipped a screenshot from the Q1 in portrait mode. Click the thumbnail to the right for a full-size pic; my impression is that this might be the perfect screen size for reading an eBook as it closely resembles the size of a paperback book. Note that I'm using the standard settings in eReader as well as the native screen resolution on the Q1 of 800 x 480.

I found that the book is equally readable in landscape mode in the same resolution, but of course, I have to flip the page much more often. Speaking of landscape, while the Q1 supports rotation from landscape, it only supports it in the native resolution. You can't have portrait mode in 800 x 600 nor in 1024 x 800. In my opinion, it would be nice to have that support, however, the text size for reading eBooks is a bit small.

I should also mention that eBook reading on a touchscreen is much more enjoyable than on an active digitizer screen. While I can use the stylus or hardware buttons to flip pages back and forth, it's a joy to just use a finger for page flips!

Some of you asked about Microsoft Reader as well, so I've a screen capture of that as well as Sudoku after the jump!

I've never been a fan of Microsoft Reader, mainly due to the activation process, but I'll "take one for the team" and install it on the Samsung Q1. When I installed it, I did get an error message indicating that Reader is optimized for resolutions higher than 800 x 600. Hint for Microsoft: consider a UMPC version of Reader that's optimized for 800 x 480.

I clicked past the warning, ran through the activation hoops (oh the things I do you for you people) and grabbed a free eBook. Here's a shot of "The War of the Worlds", again in the native res and in portrait mode. I noticed that Reader takes up a little less real estate than eReader in this configuration, even though I've maximized it. This must be the "optimization" that Reader has for higher resolution displays; not a big deal, but less real estate means less words per page and leads to more page flipping.

While we're on the subject of page flipping; it's very difficult on the Q1 with the Tablet PC version of Microsoft Reader. The page numbers correctly appear at the bottom of the page, but the little forward and back arrows are...well....little. You'll need the stylus for page navigation and that's a real shame. You can enable and use the "Page Riffle" section at the bottom of the page, but you again, you must tap the itty-bitty double arrow forward; what a pain. Again, I think this is due to running Reader at 800 x 480, so BIGGER HINT for Microsoft: consider a UMPC version of Reader that's optimized for 800 x 480!

OK, enough with the eBooks! Ink Sudoku is included and works as expected; this is a Tablet PC after all! Nothing new to report here; it looks beautiful and works well with inking, so I'll just leave you with some eye-candy.

-kct

Comments

[jk]

Kevin, in eReader make your margins smaller and you will get a lot more text than you show in your photo. You can even go all the way to the edge if you want.