Hi,
I'd like to get some general opinions here about reading on a phablets?
How comfortable is it to just sit down an read from it for an hour or two? Would prefer a smaller tablet to it?
I generally read on my iPad mini, for 1-2 hours every night before bed; would I keep going back to my iPad?
Would I just be going back to my iPad solely for the battery life, rather than form factor?
For me the phablet format is
perfect for reading, and I've done tons and tons of reading on my Note 2. The screen is big enough that I can rest my hands on my lap while sitting on the metro etc., and read very well at that distance. At night I rest my elbows on the mattress and hold the phone in landscape mode, also very comfy for longer reading sessions.
I've tried going back to reading on tablets but I really prefer the phablet. Even an iPad mini is a lot heavier and much more uncomfortable to hold for longer periods of time. With a phablet you lose some screen real estate - but it is so, so much nicer to hold for a long time. A phablet is also easier to always bring with you. You might even apply the old camera saying here: "The best ebook is the one you have with you!" I find that I'm reading more since getting my Note 2.
Also I find the 5.5"-6" screen size a very natural size for reading in terms of how iong the rows are. It is similar to reading a normal paperback, whereas with a tablet it's more like reading a cumbersome, big book.
For late night reading I find that the minimum brightness of the screen is very important. A bright screen disturbs others in the room and really hurts the eyes after a while. Here my Note 2 was better than any iOS device I've tested so far, because Android has apps that let you lower the brightness further than the phone does in itself. The Note 4 also supposedly has a very low minimum brightness point.
Yesterday I tested the 6 Plus and reading quality on it was one of the main things I was looking at. Here I found that iBooks would split the text into two rows in landscape mode which was very bad. Essentially then you get two iPhone 4 reading screens next to each other....this didn't work at all for me. But there might be a setting to change this that I didn't find.
For the best reading experience right now I would definitely recommend a phablet. Of the phones you mention, I would clearly hold the Note 3 over the G3. Both screens are sharp enough but the extra length of the Note 3 actually makes it more comfortable to hold for longer durations - in landscape mode it makes for a more natural double handed grip, and in portrait mode you bury less of the screen with the ball of your hand and don't risk touching the onscreen buttons. The G3 is also known to have some graphics issue with text.
The only phone I can see possibly dethroning the current Note 4 or iPhone 6 Plus in terms of reading would be the upcoming Nexus 6. A slightly larger screen while retaining more or less the same footprint might be even more perfect for reading.
