Aldiko Book Reader v1.2.11

App Review:	Aldiko Book Reader v1.2.11
Price:	FREE
Developer:	Aldiko Limited
Reviewer:	TonyB
TonyB’s Rating:	4
User Rating:	4.52

Pros / Cons

Pros:

Customizable, intuitive, pleasant user interface

Cons:

Serious lack of contemporary popular titles

Review:

With the recent releases of the Kindle for Android and the Kobo eReader for Android, now might be an appropriate time to take a good hard look at Aldiko, one of Android’s most popular eBook apps.

At the outset, Aldiko doesn’t look all that different than readers you’ve probably seen before.  The virtual bookshelf is not unlike Apple’s iBooks shelf, boasting a wood grain background that gives your virtual library a distinguished flare.  When reading a book, you can toggle day and night modes; bookmarks remember your place indefinitely; pages “turn” when you tap the right part of the screen; and you can adjust the style and size of text font–but if you’re coming from another ebook reader, none of this is exactly cutting edge.

Under the hood, Aldiko has some interesting functions that many other eReader apps simply don’t offer.  Customization is the name of the game.  You can alter aspects of the layout, such as line spacing, horizontal margins, and text alignment, etc.  Readers can also adjust the color of the page, fonts, and links.  Depending on how you like to flip through pages, you can set the UI up to recognize (or ignore) taps, flings, and volume up/down buttons.

If you’re like me and obsessively check how far you’ve got until the end of the book, just click the Show Progress button to get a bar-graph visual on how much you’ve got left, and to see percentage of book/chapter completed.  But my favorite part about Aldiko is the ease of adjusting screen brightness: you simply slide your finger up or down the left side of the screen, (very useful for reducing eye strain).  I also appreciate the ability to view the books contents from the settings menu, and go directly to another part of the book without having to flip through a million pages.

Another thing that sets Aldiko apart from its competitors is that it seems more geared to helping you find free content, rather than funneling you to a market showcasing the NYT best sellers.  The other side of that blade, however, is that it’s almost impossible to find many popular books you’d easily find on the shelves of Borders.

For example, I tried downloading a well known book and current bestseller, “The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo,” but couldn’t locate any such file, even to purchase.  If I were so inclined, I could have imported and ePub version of this book into Aldiko, but then I would have had to search for the book on the internet, buy it, download it, then import it into Aldiko (assuming the file format is in fact in ePub format), but why would I do that when there’s a slew of other eReaders in the Android market just falling over each other to get my attention, promising to save me from such toil?  With Kindle or Kobo, I’d be able to find and download this book (for a fee) in a matter of minutes.

Aldiko’s lack of book databases is arguably it’s biggest shortcoming.  It relies heavily on free texts that are in the public domain, as well as a rather mismatched handful of other collections: O’Reilly eBooks (for downloading tech publications and how to’s); All Romance eBooks; and Smashwords (an admirable enterprise design to showcase independent and self-published authors).

Another small issue (that you might notice from the above picture on the right) is ads occasionally pop up here and there, but I didn’t find them all that troublesome.  They don’t pop up when I’m reading, that’s the main thing.  If ads get on your nerves, you can always purchase the full version, Aldiko Book Reader Premium, for $2.99.

When considering Aldiko, here’s the caveat: unless you want a title that falls under classics, romance, software tech manuals, or self-published literature, Aldiko’s lack books might be a dealbreaker.

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