Read Magazines on Tablet PC with Zinio

Manufacturer: Zinio

Web site: www.zinio.com

Estimated price: Free downloadable reader; magazine subscription prices vary from around $14 to $50.

Zinio is a reader for electronic magazines, which is projected to be a hot application of the Tablet PC technology. Microsoft itself is getting into this market with a product called ePeriodicals that can be used to prepare complex documents, such as magazines, to be read on the Tablet PC.

You can download digital magazines and then read them on the go. What’s great about digital magazines is that you can search for topics and store back issues. You can also send free copies of articles to people. I find the vertical screen orientation for Tablet PC works best, with the most magazinelike appearance.

Currently, Zinio offers a Digital Magazine Stand with publications including PCWorld, Pocket PC, Business Week, and National Geographic Traveler. You can also find some industry-specific publications.

Zinio’s Web site offers the Zinio reader and several magazines for free download. (The choice of digital publications will broaden in time, but one of them is likely to be of interest to you.) To get other publications, you have to subscribe; subscription prices as of the writing of this book ranged from $14.95 for a year of Game Pro to $49 for a year of Rotor & Wing (a magazine about helicopters — you may need that when you buy that corporate copter to fly yourself to the corporate bungalow in Bermuda).

After you download a magazine, you can use your keyboard or pen to flip pages and jump to articles from the listing of links in the table of contents. By using your pen, you can also highlight anything that interests you or add notes for yourself.