Step away from the monitor and give your eyes a break. E-book readers, also known as e-readers, rely on e-ink screens to let you read for long periods of time without burning your brain from irradiating LCD or OLED screens. They have great battery life and look great in sunlight. Amazon’s Kindle dominates the e-reader market in the US, but if you’re shopping, it’s best to look at models from Kobo, Nook, and Onyx.
Here are the best ebook readers we’ve tested, followed by everything you need to know before deciding which one is right for you.
This week’s best e-reader deals*
- Kindle Paper White 8GB Essentials Bundle — $169.97 (list price $189.97)
- Kindle Paper White SE 32GB Essentials Bundle — $229.97 (list price $249.97)
- Ignite Scribe 16GB Essentials Bundle — $409.97 (list price $449.97)
What are the best e-reader screen types and sizes?
Basic ebook readers use monochrome e-ink screens to display text. E Ink, or digital ink (often made by the E Ink company), looks a lot like paper, but is easier to read for long periods of time than text on traditional digital displays. However, more affordable models don’t have backlights, so you may need a light to see the text, like printed books. But most ebook readers now include edge lighting, which lets you read in the dark. You can usually change the brightness level from barely to torch brightness. On the lowest setting, you can read in the dark while your partner sleeps undisturbed next to you.
In all cases, E Ink is easier to read in bright sunlight, whereas color touchscreens on tablets tend to fade and show distracting reflections.
Most E Ink readers used to have 6-inch screens, but panel sizes are slowly increasing: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite and Kobo Libra 2 have 7-inch displays, Kindle Scribe and Kobo Elipsa 2E have 10.2-inch screens, and Onyx sells Larger size models are up to 13.3 inches. We found that when reading with one hand on screen sizes larger than 7 inches, you start to have balance problems.
Screen resolution and quality also vary. Some older Kindles use 167ppi displays, which look grainy and jagged compared to the 300ppi displays of more modern models. Amazon and Kobo’s newest readers go a step further with Carta 1200 technology, which allows for faster page turns and better contrast.
Best Color E-Reader
If you need to read more than just books, a tablet with a color screen offers many other benefits. Magazines and comic books look great on the larger tablet. Even on a low-cost tablet like the Amazon Fire 7, you can browse the web, stream video from Netflix, Hulu, and more, play music, and run apps. However, because of its high-quality screen and general functionality, we recommend the base-model iPad for almost anyone trying to read rich, full-page color content.
In 2020, we saw a breakthrough in color E Ink displays, with several readers featuring E Ink Kaleido or E Ink Kaleido Plus technology. We’ve tested two of these, the Onyx Boox Nova3 Color (no longer sold) and the PocketBook InkPad Color , and they show off some of the exciting possibilities of Color E Ink. Unfortunately, we can’t recommend them yet; the screen technology is relatively dim, with low-resolution full-color and occasional ghosting. LCD tablets were far superior, and color E Ink displays haven’t evolved much since then.
The best e-readers on the beach
If you like to read in the tub, by the pool, or on the beach, consider a waterproof e-book reader. Options include the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite, the Kobo Libra 2, and the Kobo Clara 2E, all of which can withstand a certain amount of submersion. Other readers were less resilient.
The best e-readers for taking notes
All eBook readers allow you to highlight or mark specific phrases for later reference. Some have digital pens that allow you to take notes directly on the screen. The Phenomenal tablet line, Kindle Scribe, Kobo Elipsa 2E, many Onyx Boox tablets, and the iPad line support pen input. Typically, they allow you to annotate on PDFs and other types of documents and take freehand notes on blank pages. The Kobo Elipsa 2E is our favorite E Ink pen tablet because of its strong document format support. Scribe feels equally good to write, but Amazon’s Kindle ecosystem needs a little more effort to get the most out of certain document formats.
The best e-readers for audiobooks
Sometimes you’d rather listen than read. Sometimes you want to read and listen at the same time. The Kindle can now connect to Bluetooth headphones to play Audible audiobooks, and many Amazon titles can sync with Audible audiobooks on the Kindle e-reader. Kobo uses a proprietary audiobook format for comparison.
Oddly, Amazon saves its smoothest audiobook feature, Immersion Reading, for its Android app. This feature syncs the words displayed on the page with the words you hear aloud.
Where can I get the eBook?
The eBook reader you choose determines which ecosystem is available to you.
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo all use copy protection on most of their books, which prevents you from reading titles on other brands of e-readers. Copy protection can be removed, but you can also remove features like formatting and character digests in the process. Stripping protections from Amazon Books has also become more difficult in recent years.
How much should you spend on an e-reader?
If you’re reading mainstream fiction or non-fiction, the best price right now is $6 to $7 for a good 100-inch or 150-inch Amazon or Kobo device. You can get low-end models that cost less or larger models that cost more, but ebook readers at this price point tend to strike the best balance between screen quality and size.
Onyx’s tablet-sized reader is significantly more expensive than other ebook readers. Still, they’re more powerful, allowing you to run multiple reading apps, annotate PDFs, and read large-format documents on the big screen. We primarily see these for academics, lawyers, and doctors. The Kindle Scribe is more readily available and less expensive (though still considerably more expensive than the Kindle Paperwhite), but it has fewer features.
