Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsFavorite magazine translates poorly onto Kindle Fire
Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2012
THE WEEK Magazine is a gem, and when I got a Kindle Fire I was looking forward to converting to digital download to avoid the lag time of "snail mail". However, after reading the reviews, where others expressed concern about font size in the magazine format, I decided just to download a single copy and see for myself if there was a problem, before subscribing for an entire year.
When I opened the digital magazine, the page looked just like my "hard copy", but...the other reviewers were correct...the font was too small to be comfortably read. I noted that the magazine page did not completely fill the Kindle screen, whether held horizontally or vertically. The font adjustment icon at the bottom of the page is grayed out in Page View, and does not activate to enlarge the type content in magazine format. On the tool bar at the top of the page, there are two options: Page View (which is the magazine format) and Text View (which makes the content appear as though it was a book instead of a magazine.) The font adjustment icon under Text View works, allowing the reader to adjust text font to a comfortable size. However, if you toggle back to Page View, the font size will not increase.
I called The Week to inquire if they were doing any formatting updates to correct the digital appearance of their content on the Kindle Fire, and they referred me to Amazon tech support. The tech I spoke with said that the only way to increase the font size in Page View at this time is to put your fingers in the middle of the page and expand the magazine page to fill the full Kindle screen. However, when you do this, the font increases but the text runs off all the margins, making a substantial amount of the content unreadable.
Since I do not subscribe to any other magazines on the Kindle, I'm not sure if this is a Kindle issue, or a problem with the way THE WEEK has formatted their content for digital download onto the Kindle Fire. The tech I spoke with duplicated the problem I was describing, and assured me he would bump this to a supervisory level, as they're always troubleshooting as well as looking for ways to improve their product.
Bottom line is, if you don't mind losing the "magazine feel" (I do mind), you can still get the full text content in the Text View. If you love THE WEEK like I do, however, and want to retain the magazine appearance while reading, please make your voice heard at Amazon. Until the Page View font issue is resolved, I guess I'll still be getting my copies through the USPS.
