Moon+ Reader Review – A Better Alternative to Kindle?

Moon+ Reader Review – A Better Alternative to Kindle?

Moon+ Reader is an e-book reader app available on iOS or Android that has all the right features fulfilled to deliver an optimized and smooth reading experience for the user. In the 21st century, with the advent of the internet, everything is a part of the internet of things and e-book readers are not behind in that regard. It may sound simple for an eBook app to function as it only needs to display the pages per screen but there’s a lot more that goes in it which makes Moon+ one of the best choices out there in the market currently. Before we delve into what it does best and the number of features it has, please note that this is the free version’s review and there does exist a Pro version on a subscription basis offering even more customization and applicability of certain options.

Light mode and Dark mode can be scheduled, system dependent or manually chosen

Formats Supported: Moon+ Reader supports a wide range of formats which includes PDF (Pro version to edit and maintain your own), MOBI, EPUB, and even OPDS support for all the reading geeks out there who understand the importance of having so many formats supported on one platform. It even supports comic book formats allowing for virtually any book which has a transcript online, to be imported into Moon+ reader for easier reading and accessibility to the content.

Features: The wide range of formats supported being a given, the app also comes with a host of customization and ease-of-access options. Everything can be changed on an imported file, from the text size, font, font color to the formatting that it currently has. As a person who is still finishing his higher education, I got this app to give it another try without much thought to see if it would help to make reading study materials online easier, and to my surprise, it was my phone that felt like the bottleneck in that experience, not the application like it usually is the case.

Lots of options available to fine-tune readability and access Key features for reading as a source of research methodology include highlighting and making notes. To highlight, you must long-touch a string of text, and a starting and end-point marker will appear allowing the length of the highlight to be controlled, which can then be saved by clicking the ‘save’ button. To make a note, again, long-touch where the notation must be linked, when they pop up shows up, choose ‘note’ and a box will show up where you can type the relevant data as a note on the notation link. These 2 features are so important (at least for my usage), that most apps get the simplicity part wrong by adding too many complex add-ons, or the intuitiveness is not there in highlighting something. With Moon+ Reader, however, it felt very natural and not like a chore to remember that the feature exists and that I must use it to be efficient.

Sync Compatibility:

Syncing to Dropbox or Google Drive might be a bit problematic at first as it is not as intuitive as highlighting or making a note on the app. ‘Miscellaneous’ options allow for ‘Sync reading positions at Dropbox’ which has a pre-requisite of already having a Dropbox account linked. I just feel the order of actions on the app could have been a bit more deliberated for newer users so that they do not get caught under this slight hassle of trying to sync to Dropbox without having a Dropbox account linked in the first place. So far, the syncs are a bit wonky if going for 2-way edits across both platforms. What I mean by that is, syncing from one platform (let’s say your phone) to another (let’s say your desktop), works fine and flawlessly almost every time.

Options tab for Dropbox and other platform syncing choices If you were to open that same edited file on your desktop now and make some more changes and sync back to your phone, chances are your phone will not pick up on the sync.

Read More: OverDrive: The new way of reading

eBook Library: Perhaps the best part is that the free version comes in with a plethora of options in the form of a library which has a lot of free e-books that you can search upon and read the full book for free! There aren’t many apps that do this without some sort of catch or trade-off in return, but Moon+ Reader is a boon for the bookworms who do not want to spend a dime to read classic novels.

‘Calibre’ is the personal eBook manager on the app, and it can be used to create a local server where you can upload books, novels, your files, highlights, etc., and make it into a public library if you so wish to. The above-mentioned part which highlighted eBook libraries, the range of options keep increasing with each new public library added like this into its catalog allowing for not just classic novels, but to search up on unpublished or even work-in-progress- projects that people might have uploaded as a public catalog using the ‘Calibre’ feature.

Pros and Cons Pros

•

Free catalog of online books in its built-in library‘Calibre’ allows for own works to be made public

•

Smooth and intuitive highlight and annotation features

•

Lots of customization options including font and background

•

Premium version available for even more features

•

EPUB 3 support is a tad bit lacking

•

PDF support is not present on the free version

•

The free version lacks a lot of features

•

No choice to have storage on the SD card

Cons

Conclusion: Overall, it gets the job done although there is room for improvements to make the app feel smoother and more intuitive especially in the syncing department as the lesser time spent syncing or doing other miscellaneous tasks on an eBook reader, the more reading is being done. It is constantly being updated and worked on with the developers responding quickly to feedback and criticism directed at the app, which is a good sign and a reason for me to stick with the app for the coming updates as it is headed on the right path with the updates and patches being delivered. Even at its current state, it is easily a recommended choice, and if you’re a bookworm, there are no questions asked as it would be YOU missing out on Moon+ Reader, not the other way around.