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Android Apps

Android Apps: Comic Book Readers

dcheroesWith the new superhero craze that’s sweeping across the nation, comic books are becoming ever more popular. You can buy comics, download them on your computer, and even get them on your phone or tablet. There’s a huge variety of file types you can end up with – .cbr, .cbz. .cb7, .cbt, .cba, and so on. But, with great variety comes great responsibility. If you want to read these comics on your phone (or tablet), you’ll need an app that can do it all.


acv

The first app we have to show you is A Comic Viewer, or ACV. This is a pretty simple, lightweight app. You can simply put some comic files on your SD card, and ACV can navigate to them and open them up. It’s pretty minimalistic and straightforward, meaning it’s really easy to use. And of course, there are some nice basic features and customization available.

On some phone models, this app does have a memory bug, so be careful. If you find your internal storage being eaten up, that might be ACV. To solve this, you’ll need to remove some of the comic files off your external, and your internal should decrease proportionately. This only happens on some phones and certain versions of Android, so most likely this won’t even be a problem.


An alternative to ACV is Perfect Viewer. This interface is a lot less minimalistic, and there’s
unnameda bit more of a learning curve when it comes to using this app. That being said, there’s definitely more customizability. A lot of customizability. This ranges from changing what happens when you tap different areas of a comic page to being able to set a comic page as your phone’s wallpaper.

Because of the sheer number of options available in this app, Perfect Viewer is a fan favorite. If you want something really simple and basic, this app will probably be a lot more than you asked for – but if you want to really tailor your comic reading experience, this is a good choice.


unnamed

Comics by comiXology is a bit of a different take on the comic reader app. This doesn’t open comic files from your SD card, but instead allows you to buy comics, and read them, right through the app. There are a couple of free comics available on the market here, and if you buy your comics on your computer with comiXology, you can read them on your android device as well, just by logging in.

The interface is pretty easy to navigate, and has a relatively slick design. The one hangup that users sometimes have is finding their comics after they buy them. Under the Featured drop-down, you can go to Purchases, and should be able to see all your comics there.


 To Summarize…

These three comic readers are three of the most popular, free comic reader apps on the Android market. They all work very well, though none of them are going to work perfect on every phone – some phones might experience crashing or bugs, just like any other Android app (as we’ve mentioned in our Android app buying guide).

If you want a simple, straightforward, minimalistic comic reading experience, ACV might be for you. If you want to customize your comic reading so that it’s absolutely perfect, Perfect Viewer might be something to consider. If you want to buy comics right from your app, or don’t have the ability to work with an SD card as a storage device, Comics by comiXology would be a great choice. Lastly, if you don’t mind paying for your Android apps, you might want to check out ComicRack (or read this lovely LifeHacker review of it).

Marvelcharactercomposit

Check out each of the readers, and maybe some ones I didn’t mention, to see what works best for you and your device. Happy reading!