Comixology

Comixology

A couple years ago, a friend of mine who reads more comics than anyone I know purchased a Nook Color to start reading digitally to save money. I advised him not to, not liking the display of color e-readers compared to e-ink and also not caring for the DRM of Comixology and related platforms. He (wisely) ignored my whining and has been a happy digital subscriber to a number of titles since.

And now, here I find myself with a Nexus 7 and a bookshelf filled with comics to the point that the shelves are starting to bend, looking at the prices of comics on Comixology and realizing what a good solution it is.

I had played with the app for a while on my crappy android phone, and while it was always decent, it never really impressed me. But Nexus 7's HD, large screen, makes the pages really look gorgeous, especially when zoomed in to the panel by panel view. I think I would even go as far as to say I prefer it to reading physical. I'm alternating between reading free comics provided by the app (their “12 Days of Free Comics” promotion is running during this writing and is really worth getting the app for if you haven't yet) and my Grendel omnibuses and Comixology is by far the better experience.

And finally, there's price factor. I was considering getting the Spawn: The Dark Ages complete serieshardcover for about $40, marked down from a list price of $60. But on Comixology, it's $14.99. So not only is the experience better (for me at least, so far) but it's less than half of the cost of even the Amazon price. That's really, really attractive to me. And I understand that single back issues are $1.99 typically. Right now I feel a little like the guy who kept buying VHS tapes after DVDs came out since I thought it would never catch on. (“Who wants to buy an expensive DVD player?”) And now I'm staring at that weighted down bookshelf, remembering how even a couple months ago I thought “Who wants to buy an expensive tablet?” as I went to comics shows in Philly and South Jersey hunting down great deals. A fun way to spend a Sunday, sure, but Comixology is competitive even with those prices.

And they don't charge admission.

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Check out the quality on this screen cap of a page of Wonder Woman:

And this screen cap zoomed into a panel of the same page:

Not bad huh? Highly readable, beautiful really.

Nexus 7

So I bought a Nexus 7.

Wait, let me back up. This isn't a blog about writing anymore.

Or reading. Or Anything.

I'm trying to finish my Bachelor's Degree, in the interest of doing so as quickly as possible I'm in a Communications program (lol). Class is easy, you pretty much get a degree if you pay your money, show up to class and can fog a glass. But one thing bothers me: note taking.

I like to hand write my notes during lectures and I like to copy them again by hand to study. The act of writing them (not typing) helps keep them in my head. But I don't like juggling notebooks, a laptop and textbooks.

So I bought a Nexus 7.

Let's back up again. I considered a Galaxy Note to replace my phone, because that S-Pen is sweet and it recognizes handwriting decently well. But since it costs approximately $700 trillion (or $350 trillion with a new contract) I decided I wanted something cheaper, and phablets are not typically cheap. With a $200 tablet, I would save money by buying digital textbooks and be ahead by the end of my next semester.

I looked into the Asus Memo Pad, but it seemed that the Nexus 7 2nd gen was a lot more for only a little more money. So I found one over Thanksgiving weekend for $190, and I must say, I'm impressed.

For note taking, I was using the free SuperNote Pro app from Asus until I discovered that it was only "free" in the sense that you needed to pay $50/year to write more than 20 notes per month. Yeah. Sure Asus. Sounds like a great deal.

For now I'm using Papyrus as an alternative, and it seems fine for my purposes. If I find anything free out there that's better I'll switch again.

I was also excited to use emulators with the Dual Shock 3 via bluetooth, so I needed to root it. I never rooted a device before so this guide from laptopmag.com was very useful. So was this. However, neither of them addressed getting proper drivers so it was a little annoying figuring that out. You can find them from Google here. Once I rooted, I got the Sixaxis app and it worked beautifully.

When I saw the prices of cases and stylii (styluses? I want to write styluses) I laughed. Then I found this case with a stylus on Amazon for $5. No, that price is not missing a zero. FIVE DOLLARS. And the case and Stylus both work great.

Maybe I'm just in the honeymoon period.