App and game reviews by Mobilism's Android Reviews team
May 20th, 2015, 12:10 am
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App: Moon+ Reader Pro v4.5.3
Developer: Moon+
Category: Books & Reference
Price: $4.99
IAP: N/A

Moon+ Reader Pro is a stylish and complete solution for reading nearly any type of eBook or text format you will likely encounter. It is my favorite app for viewing written media, which actually made it fun to start reading again on my tablet, given the many interesting features. Moon+ Reader Pro offers the new Material Design look with both light and dark modes, giving you a choice depending on your environment, and offers a streamlined interface for speed. A major convenient feature is the ability to read stored eBook collections on DropBox and Google Drive; storing bookmarks on the cloud, as well. This means that you can free up space on your devices and easily pick up where you left off, no matter which device you choose to use. If your eyes get tired or you find yourself lazy, there is full voice support to read the material to you and even an optional periodic toast reminding you to take a break, along with automated page scrolling. You may also change the background to several included colors and textures with most formats, and along with the optional page flipping animations, can closely resemble an actual book. There is also a dual page mode for landscape use which will adapt to your ergonomic preferences and reading styles.

The amount of options available are numerous as you discover more of what this amazing application has to offer. It makes studying a breeze with varied colors for highlighting and annotations of words or selections, along with full support for several dictionaries to obtain definitions at a press of a word. There is an optional toolbar with several settings that you can fully customize to your liking, which sits comfortably below the page and offers important information such as page numbers, time and the like. You can then create function buttons for fast navigation and quick access to certain tasks for your convenience; either being static or in auto-hide varieties. There is a password protection feature included so that your material doesn't end up in the wrong hands. Statistics are logged as you read through your library, which can also be reset at any time. It will also display the amount of words you read over time and give you a words per minute rating, which I find interesting as I love statistics in general.

Moon+ ensured that your reading experience can be custom tailored to your liking, no matter what scenario you might come up with. The amount of features and options are simply too numerous to list in this review and are fun to discover on your own as you peruse the interface with your favorite media. I have a wealth of apps on my devices that I find to be of very high caliber; this is certainly one of them as it exists on all my devices as a required app that is used frequently. I really struggled to even come up with a con below, but I would like to see more cloud services other than the two which are currently supported. The developer releases updates periodically to enhance what is already offered and to implement new features occasionally, giving this fine application the support and care it so well deserves. If you love to read, or are even thinking about starting again, this is the application of choice for Android; I cannot recommend it highly enough to anyone as it's simply done right and properly.

Pros:
  • An advanced ergonomic eBook reader of high quality.
  • Extended file format support for eBooks and all text media.
  • Customization to your liking and chock full of great options.
  • DropBox and Google Drive library support with cloud bookmarks.
  • Robust highlighting and annotation tools with dictionary support.

Cons:
  • Support for more than two cloud servers would be ideal.

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Reviewer rating: Image
Device/OS used: Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7 2012 / KitKat v4.4.4, Lollipop v5.1.1

Purchase at Google Play
Purchase at Amazon
Mobilism: Moon+ Reader Pro v4.5.3 build 453001 Final [Patched + Mod]


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May 20th, 2015, 12:10 am
May 22nd, 2015, 6:59 pm
Totally agree !
Also, frequent updates and improvements.
May 22nd, 2015, 6:59 pm
Dec 20th, 2015, 10:06 pm
As with every year during this holiday season, Moon+ Reader Pro has just been reduced to 50% off the normal retail price! You can now own the coolest eBook reader for Android for only $2.49, and I would say it's worth every cent as reading in this app is a pure joy. The holiday sale will last between December 21, 2015 through January 4, 2016, so this would be an ideal time to grab this amazing app while it's at such a great price.

Also, included in this recent update is a built-in Bluelight filter for eye care that is an option in settings to toggle as required. And, drum roll, please...The return of the old styled bookshelf is finally back by popular demand that has an optional wood texture to proudly display your books. Yay! This app keeps getting better as time goes along, and is one of my favorite purchases.
Dec 20th, 2015, 10:06 pm
Feb 9th, 2016, 12:53 pm
I use Moon+ Reader Pro as my primary reader, and while I feel it is best out there it has some weaknesses that need to be addressed:

1) No support for Adobe DRM licensing like needed for borrowed books from the Open Library.
2) While you can store books on an external SD card, you can't default the main library directory to the external card. Books dropped into the main directory are automatically imported into the reader. Effectively, this means you have to manually import new books.
3) I have a _lot_ of books. Which is why I have them stored on the external card. This is well and good (except for #2 above!) , but the page cover thumbnails are stored in internal phone/tablet memory. The thumbnail images are in some cases larger than the actual epubs. You lose the space gained by moving the books to the external card!
4) Doesn't natively read AZW3. Some AZW3 books are really mobi, and by changing the file type you can read them. But others need to be converted to epub.

Some missed strengths :

1) Moon+ can be integrated with ColorDict. This allows you to highlight a word or phrase and search multiple dictionaries, Wikipedia, and Google directly from the reader.
2) A slick, easy to use cover image update routine - click on the settings drop down off the book, click download book cover, and it pops up a Google image search window off the book title. Long-click on an image and it selects it as the cover.
Feb 9th, 2016, 12:53 pm
Feb 9th, 2016, 6:07 pm
Greetings, DrJoe123! As this was my first review on Mobilism and I have since spent a lot more time with the app, I have been meaning to revise this review. Looking at my other reviews, you will notice how they grew in size to small essay papers over the course of a year; thus, being such a complex app, time was an element working against me to revisit Moon+. Just this week I tried FBReader, Mantano, Aldiko, Calibre, FullReader+ and Universal Book Reader; maintaining that Moon+ is still my preferred app, but noting the many differences in the process, which are many.

As Moon+ is the most aesthetic reader on the market, it does lack robust support for many other formats, unfortunately. Other readers may support a multitude of other formats, but lack the appeal that Moon+ provides, which is the trade-off in a competitive field. I believe that over time Moon+ will bring more formats to the table to flesh out its capabilities. The SD card anomaly you speak of may very well be an adverse effect of the Android v4.4+ inability to write to the SD card and not an inherent shortcoming of the app itself.

Regarding importing books, it seems to import the books no matter what location you select and I cannot get it to do otherwise. There might be a setting I'm missing in options, but selecting any book from cloud locations or elsewhere will inherently copy the book over to the local storage location selected in options. It would be nice to 'stream' the content from external locations without copying it over, but I'm not aware of any app that does this. As such, I only have about six books on my shelf as loading it up like a library didn't seem like a wise idea to save on storage space.

Many updates have been released since this initial review that have included helpful features like the new Bluelight filter, which was even added in Google Books recently. I do believe there are many new features to come and a wider array of format support coming in the future to maintain the great reputation Moon+ has with its customers. Thank you very much for the input, suggestions, interest and lengthy list of omissions that will be included within a future revision of this review.
Feb 9th, 2016, 6:07 pm
Feb 10th, 2016, 4:57 am
Hi, Shardz,

Thanks for your kind response. I've used several of the readers you mentioned, plus a few others - I have seven or eight installed on my tablet, but all in all I like Moon+ best. I agree with your conclusion regarding give & take regarding format support vs functionality. But I do use Mantano for Open Library books / Adobe DRM and ebookdroid for pdf magazines (horizontal scrolling). I was going to mention the blue light filter myself when I saw you'd already added it to your update. I think it was a fine review.

I don't have the import problem you mentioned - I only have books automatically added if dropped in the main library directory: you set this directory and enable auto import off the options button on the side screen of the main library.

You are right about the Joe's - the developer said the same thing, but I use Android Lollipop which has more functionality, and aside from a few book I've updated with better covers, all of the books have covers with the epub and Metadata files on the external card - I export the library from Calibre and it includes the covers. So it should not need a second copy of the cover.

Take care,

Joe
Feb 10th, 2016, 4:57 am
Dec 27th, 2017, 12:32 pm
The first thing I did after getting my first Android was to search for a book reader that can read epub and/or mobile format.Then found Moon+ at the top of that list.I have installed every available reader that can read epub/mobi(epub is my favorite),but none feels natural as this one.I try to find an alternative every couple of months as I have done for last 5 years almost;but none is as sleek and practical as Moon+.Not to mention it's a lite app.
Except for the inability that happened after KK that resulted in some minor SD card issues,It's the best reader for phones.
Dec 27th, 2017, 12:32 pm
Jan 30th, 2018, 5:31 am
You can even have this read to you as you drive... It`s awesome
Jan 30th, 2018, 5:31 am
Apr 10th, 2018, 6:38 pm
The only limitation that I personally feel is lack of support of djvu and AZW files.
Apr 10th, 2018, 6:38 pm
Apr 10th, 2018, 11:23 pm
Whatname wrote:The only limitation that I personally feel is lack of support of djvu and AZW files.

Moon+ supports azw files. You may need to rename them to .mobi, but it definitely supports them just fine.
Apr 10th, 2018, 11:23 pm
Apr 19th, 2018, 11:22 pm
Also note that it doesn't work if you have root and are unable to use Magisk hide (like on older devices stuck on kitkat which can't use magisk). Though oddly enough the lite version does. I have no idea why the developer would go to the trouble of adding a root check and then telling you how to work around it in their official FAQ.
Apr 19th, 2018, 11:22 pm
Apr 24th, 2018, 5:06 pm
Lithium is also very good. It also free, so you don have to pirate it.
Apr 24th, 2018, 5:06 pm
Jun 24th, 2018, 2:07 pm
You should try pocket book reader
Jun 24th, 2018, 2:07 pm
Jul 4th, 2018, 4:32 pm
Shardz wrote:Greetings, DrJoe123! As this was my first review on Mobilism and I have since spent a lot more time with the app, I have been meaning to revise this review. Looking at my other reviews, you will notice how they grew in size to small essay papers over the course of a year; thus, being such a complex app, time was an element working against me to revisit Moon+. Just this week I tried FBReader, Mantano, Aldiko, Calibre, FullReader+ and Universal Book Reader; maintaining that Moon+ is still my preferred app, but noting the many differences in the process, which are many.

As Moon+ is the most aesthetic reader on the market, it does lack robust support for many other formats, unfortunately. Other readers may support a multitude of other formats, but lack the appeal that Moon+ provides, which is the trade-off in a competitive field. I believe that over time Moon+ will bring more formats to the table to flesh out its capabilities. The SD card anomaly you speak of may very well be an adverse effect of the Android v4.4+ inability to write to the SD card and not an inherent shortcoming of the app itself.

Regarding importing books, it seems to import the books no matter what location you select and I cannot get it to do otherwise. There might be a setting I'm missing in options, but selecting any book from cloud locations or elsewhere will inherently copy the book over to the local storage location selected in options. It would be nice to 'stream' the content from external locations without copying it over, but I'm not aware of any app that does this. As such, I only have about six books on my shelf as loading it up like a library didn't seem like a wise idea to save on storage space.

Many updates have been released since this initial review that have included helpful features like the new Bluelight filter, which was even added in Google Books recently. I do believe there are many new features to come and a wider array of format support coming in the future to maintain the great reputation Moon+ has with its customers. Thank you very much for the input, suggestions, interest and lengthy list of omissions that will be included within a future revision of this review.
Jul 4th, 2018, 4:32 pm
Jul 4th, 2018, 4:36 pm
Try AlReader, is free and full of features. I used Moon Reader Pro since 2011 , but few months ago i discover AlReader and switcvh to it
Jul 4th, 2018, 4:36 pm