Yes, this is primarily a books blog, but I’m finding that I am using other media, be it ebooks, audio, video, or even digital and pocket-held games, more frequently. It may happen that I go a day without opening a physical book for myself, but I won’t pass a day without reading something, it just might be via my nook or an audiobook, etc.
As I begin my homeschool journey, I’ve been searching for apps to help me. But I am one of those people without Apple products, and many of the posts on apps for kids relate to iPad. Today I want to talk about the Reader app I’ve enjoyed the most. I use this for myself, not just for homeschooling! It’s my most essential app on my tablet!
Mantano has great features, and the developer is readily open to feedback so it keeps improving. Mantano has easy-to-organize bookshelves, the ability to import epub and pdf (and the pdf files look great), and there is full support for adobe DRM (i.e., Netgalley and library books). Ebooks link to local (Premium only) or online dictionaries and Wikipedia (must have internet connection). It has a great user interface and design for reading, and you can apply your own themes to each book you read. It’s easy to import books from the integrated OPDS catalog or from your SD card or internal device memory.
Further, I can easily add annotations, notes, and bookmarks. This is a great help for some of our school pages, where I can let my son mark up a workbook page without having to print it out. I’m all for saving paper whenever we can. I consider a good ebook app to be essential to our homeschooling, and Mantano Reader Premium is my reader of choice.
The Lite version (free) has ads, Essentials version ($2.99) has no ads, and the Premium version ($6.99) has extra features: Text-to-speech, embedded dictionaries, and more ease-of-use.
What e-reading app do you use on your Android device? Why do you like it?
Note: I primarily use a Nook Color, rooted with Android cyanogenmod 2.3.7, Mirage.
Oh, thank you! I have a tablet and I can’t find a reading app that lets me read my Netgalley and such books. I will have to see if I can get this one. 🙂 I can! What version do you use? I am getting the free version just to see what it is like… Also because the Canadian prices are more than the ones you listed… (surprise, surprise…)
Kailana » I got the premium one because I really wanted a downloaded dictionary. Otherwise, it’s only an online link. So I have French-English, Spanish-English, and English dictionaries all on my tablet. They aren’t the best, though, so I often still look up things online since the French I encounter is in Victorian-era novels! There is nothing wrong with the Lite and I did use that for a while. There are ads too, for that, but if you are not online, then they won’t show up (but, then, of course, you can’t use the online dictionary of the lite version with no internet connection). Enjoy! I’ve been quite pleased. There are a few things that could be better, but everything has room for improvement, right?
Hi!
So, I used the reader for the first time last night and I really like it. I am relieved that I can finally read on my tablet. It was supposed to be a new e-reader, as well as other tablet benefits, and then I couldn’t find anything I liked! I was worried I was going to have to get a new e-reader after all! Thanks for this post! I might upgrade at some point, but the free version is working well so far.