I’ve had Zinio on the iPad and iPhone for some time now. As a professional aviator (and part-time blogger), I was happy to find Flying magazine, Aviation Week and Aviation International News on here. While these magazines may sound boring, it proves that Zinio has done a great job securing a deep level of trade mags for many different industries. It’s hard not to give props to Zinio as well when you see magazines like Billboard, The Economist, Rolling Stone, Car & Driver and National Geographic on here too. But how is it to read an entire digital magazine on the iPad or iPhone? And what about the cost? Read on as I give you my take on the practicality of buying and viewing content through Zinio.

When you first load Zinio on the iPad, you’re greeted by the ‘featured articles’ section from some of the top magazines on newstands. They even give you a free article from the latest edition to wet your appetite before you buy. But if you click on the ‘shop’ tab at the bottom, you’ll have a host of categories to click through to find your favorite magazines. One feature I find missing though is a simple search bar. But I think you’ll be impressed by how many well known magazines have signed up with Zinio to turn there hard copy counterparts into beautiful e-zines for the iPad. Purchasing is pretty simple, but it does kick you out of the app to the Web to make the purchase. However, once you buy, the ‘proceed’ button takes you back to the app and the download begins. Over WiFi, the download happens pretty quickly and you can start reading before the download is complete. 3G download speeds will vary and probably take longer.

So how is to read and navigate a digital magazine on the iPad? Simply put…it’s great! For starters, this is not a simple PDF conversion. Zinio has done a terrific job of making reading a digital magazine feel natural. While the pages don’t curl like in iBooks, you can jump from the contents page to any article in the magazine via the blue underlined text. Pinch and zooming brings everything to life, and tapping the page brings up thumbnail pages at the bottom with additional navigation options at the top. You won’t feel lost inside the magazine with no way back. While double-tapping a story increases font size, it won’t snap the article to fit the page. You’ll just have to move the page around yourself. So, how’s the cost? Well, not much different from newstand prices. However, it is the entire magazine, you can read it on the iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch, and come back to it as often as you like…just like the real thing. Wait…it is the real thing.