Zinio is one of the top apps in the digital periodical game. It offers popular apps for iPad and Android that let users subscribe to hundreds of magazines or buy individual issues.

If you bought a tablet and wanted  the eco-friendly route and ditch your dead-tree subscriptions, it’s well worth checking out.

And now, those of you you who own a BlackBerry PlayBook can get in on the action as well. Zinio has landed in App World, and it’s even a native app — not simply a port of the company’s Android app.

I did notice the odd responsiveness problem — such as taps on UI elements not registering — but overall it functioned quite well. It’s every bit as attractive as the Zinio apps on other platforms, and it’s easy to search for titles, add and manage your subscriptions, and reading is quite enjoyable on the PlayBook’s crisp, bright 7-inch display.

When you’re reading magazines in Zinio, they look like the print editions — complete with full-page ads.

Available titles include National Geographic, The Economist, Popular Science, Maxim, Us, and Dwell.

Now if only Amazon would make good on their promise to release a Kindle app for the PlayBook.

That might not be as likely as it once was, what with the arrival of the Kindle Fire late last year. Still, Amazon’s looking to make money selling content to people too, so there’s always a chance Kindle will make its way to App World.

In the meantime, avid readers have to make do with the Kobo app for eBooks and Zinio for magazines a one-two e-Reading punch on your PlayBook.

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Lee Mathews

Computer tech, blogger, husband, father, and avid MSI U100 user.

4 replies on “Zinio brings hundreds of magazines to the BlackBerry PlayBook”

  1. Do not count seriously on zinio, they are really bad with their customers.
    I have few thousand magazines enrolled in last 7 years, in one moment, probably because I tried to take any link for free sponsored books and magazines, they decided to shut down my account, without any notice and didn’t replay on my questions.
    I was able to create “new” account, with old username/password, but my library was empty; all my magazines disappeared 
    Also quality of images are so poor, and DRM are so bad, you can copy text, print pages from some magazines. Use it for some maybe daily newspaper, to read on your tablet, phone, for books or magazines, I strongly not recommended

  2. “meantime, avid readers have to make do with the Kobo app for eBooks”

    There is no “making do” involved, I actively chose kobo for my ereading.

    I appreciate it might be unfortunate that the kindle does not yet support the playbook, if you have already invested in that ecosystem, but I would not for one second accept that kobo is inferior to any significant degree.

  3. Thanks for this great review. I work for Zinio and wanted to let you know that the UI problems are early bugs that will be fixed over time. Enjoy the app

    – Stan
    @ziniocs:twitter 

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