I've been working a lot lately and have been having a need for some creative intake. Usually I'd turn to a good book but lately, for various reasons, I've been having trouble reading anything - thus I've tried falling back on the next best thing: comics!
Japanese comics called manga to be more exact.

I've read no more than few titles in my life beforehand so I'm rather a newbie, nevertheless I do know that there are brilliant fiction out there. Pluto in particular is a work that has been on my to read list for ages.

Hardware

My first obvious choice was a laptop. My 13" thinkpad to be more exact. However it quickly turned out to be a rather inconvenient medium. Primarily for ergonomic reasons:

• Horizontal displays - work terribly on anything smaller than 19" displays where you can fit two pages at a time.
• It's heavy and has terrible ergonimics for recreational reading.
• Page turning is awkward.
• General software is subpar compared to alternatives (covered later)

So Laptop was out, what's next?

Phone

I've been having Huawei P20 Pro for almost a year, mostly for photography as it has a brilliant camera and almost as good of a 6.1" screen to match.
That was an obvious second choice!

However while the ecosystem is great - there are so many brilliant apps - the screen turned out to be just too small for convenient reading.

E-readers

Next I've tried to read some manga on my kindle paperwhite 2 which quickly turned out to be an even worse idea - the screen and resolution is just too small. I wasn't sure whether it was resolution that was to small or the physical screen size of 6", but text was clearly unreadable.

"There must be a big screen ereader" I thought. Turns out I was quite right! There were actually quite a few:

The problem here is that they're quite pricey and not really great quality. I've found the BOYUE 7.8" ereader in the local ebook shop and after playing around for few minutes it really wasn't worth the price tag. The screen quality wasn't great and the machine in general felt rather flimsy.

I've been browsing around more but I really couldn't find any worthwhile ereader in Thailand - everything had either too small screen, too small resolution or were just too expensive.

Tablets!

Alright, so the clear solution to all previously encountered problems was a simple tablet! I've tried several devices: ipad gen6, ipad mini and several android devices.

Software

For ios vs android - android was a clear winner here. There are just so many apps on android side. Open source and premium apps were much better on android side as they supported many more sources.
By far the best manga app in my opinion is: tachiyomi for android. It's supports an absurd amount of sources, they all work and there are a bunch of flavor features like sync and various logging websites integrations (like MyAnimeList.com).
The best part? It's pure floss!

Hardware

For hardware I've tested several devices in various screen sizes. I've found that anything under 9" was inadequate. There were some cool tablets in 8" range but they ended up being too small for some more text heavy manga. Even ipad mini with it's great resolution didn't feel comfortable enough.
However if you prefer smaller font size (e.g. 10pt instead of 12pt) 8" might be your thing!
For me 9" seems to be the sweet spot. Unfortunately I couldn't find any devices in my region in this screen size, at least nothing that wasn't out-dated.

Lastly there are 10 inchers which seem to be the best overall choice. First I've tried 9.7" gen6 ipad and it ended up being not very comfortable to hold and the bezels were just unnecessarily big, especially the top and bottom ones. iOS was also inferior to android when it came to app ecosystem in my opinion.
I moved on to android and there were so many great 10" options, however there was a clear winner in my research - Huawei T5 media pad.

• It's still as heavy as ipad (460g) but weirdly enough feels more comfortable to hold. The bezels are great size for vertical holding and the device is surprisingly ergonomic.
• The screen is great - you really don't need an amazing screen for black and white comics but I found nothing to complain about - size, resolution, brightness and color depth were just fine.
• The price - I've got mine for over $160 while most competing devices were twice that. Though my region (Thailand) is quite favourable for Chinese brands such as Huawei and Xiaomi when it comes to pricing.
• Ergonomics - It's a comfy tablet to hold though I'm still on a lookout for a handstrip or some holder for ultimate experience.

Conclusion

I've been using my Huawei T5 tablet for over a week now with great success. I've just finished all 68 chapters of Pluto with great comfort and enjoyment. Much more so than I would have on a laptop.

To summarize my findings:

• Tablets >=9" are the best balance between readability and ergonomics.
• E-ink tablets seems like a great idea but are hard to get by at this size.
• Android has better ecosystem than iOS.
• You can get a superb experience for $160.

I do miss e-ink displays of an e-reader however modern LCD screens with night time color adjustments are surprisingly pleasant.

With this setup I feel that I can definitely do some serious reading. Next up Alita Battle Angel! The movie wasn't that great but the story and plot got me very interested

If you're interested in digital manga reading experience I recommend picking up a 9-10" android tablet and giving it a go!