Compare the Best E-Book ReadersJune 2020

What is an E-Book Reader?

E-book readers have quickly become a common site on trains, planes and subways the world over - a simple tablet dedicated to displaying book in the simplest, most natural way possible. With excellent battery life, easy-to-read screens and capacity for thousands of books at once, e-book readers are a good way to make sure you always have something to read on your commute or holiday!

Most e-readers use a technology called ‘e-ink’ to display the books - this is uses microscopic particles suspected in a liquid film under the screen. Some of these particles are positively charged and coloured white, and others negatively charged and coloured black. By running a charge through the liquid, the white or black particles can come to the surface, allowing letters and text to form.

Because the charge is only required when the text changes, e-ink has an extremely low power draw - power is normally only used when the page is ‘turned’ (refreshed). This means that most e-readers have an extremely long battery life - they can last for weeks and even months between charges, depending on how fast you read.

Benefit of an E-book reader over mobiles/tables

When e-readers were introduced, many people wondered - you have your phone/tablet with you already, why not just use that to read books, and save yourself having to carry around another device? A fair question, and e-readers have multiple advantages over using your phone:

That said, if you do want to read books on your phone/tablet, many of the major e-reader makers have apps for those devices, allowing you to start reading a book on one device and pick it up seamlessly on another, so you can have your literary cake and eat it too.

Display

One of the biggest concerns when picking an e-book reader is the display. The quality of the text on an e-reader display is measured in Dots Per Inch (DPI). The higher the DPI, the more particles make up each letter on the screen, leading to smoother, clearer text that is easier to read. Most e-readers have a DPI of somewhere around 2-300, although top-tier models can rise as high as 600 DPI, for extremely crisp and clear text.

Tied into the DPI is the size of the display. Most e-readers are the size of small tablets - slightly larger than a paperback book. There are larger models - some go as large as 8”, meaning they are more unwieldy to carry, but can display more/larger text at once.

Battery Life

As mentioned above, because e-readers draw very little power, they have a very good battery life. Even the most basic of e-readers will have a battery life of weeks, with many able to function for a month or more between charges. Some higher-end readers have larger batteries, but these are only worth seeking out if you spend a long time travelling or away from any power - for most people a month’s charge will be more than enough.

Wifi/4g Connectivity

Nearly all e-readers apart from the very cheap models will have some form of wifi connection to allow the device to connect to the internet to download new books. Some more expensive models will also have 3G connectivity, meaning it can connect to the net from anywhere, and doesn’t have to be on a known wifi network. This can be helpful since it allows you to buy and download new books from anywhere - even half-way round the world - as long as you have a cell phone signal.

Stores

The biggest difference between all the various ranges of e-readers is the online stores they have access to. This denotes what books you can buy at what price. Kindle’s only have access to the Amazon store, while the Kobo reader has it’s own store. Amazon is far-and-away the biggest of these stores, but it doesn’t contain everything - and some of it’s publishing policies rub people the wrong way. Other stores have their own positives and negatives, so it is worthwhile does a bit of checking to see if the store for your chosen reader has a good selection before you commit to buying it.

File Formats

Alongside buying books from an online store, it is also possible to load books onto an e-reader as individual files. These files could be downloaded from a different store, received directly from the publisher (in the case of small independent labels) or even your own work.

Different e-readers have support for different types of files. One of the most popular file format is the epub (electronic publication) file - these are used for a lot of publicly available books, such as Project Guttenberg, which aims to make much of the classic literature in the world available freely. However the Kindle doesn’t directly support the epub format - meaning you’ll have to transfer it to another format if you want to use it.

If you are going to be using e-readers for independent (non-store) files a lot, it’s worth taking a look at ‘Calibre’, which is a free program for converting ebook files between different formats. The site is here: Calibre

Backlights

One of the most helpful additions to e-readers is a backlight. While lacking in very cheap models, most mid-range readers have a light built into the screen, which allows you to read in low-light conditions. Many have several different levels of brightness as well - higher brightness can be helpful in certain situations, but lower brightness will help conserve battery power.

Waterproofing

Waterproofing is currently limited to a small collection of e-readers, but is immensely helpful if you can get it. Having a water-resistant device means that you can happily read everywhere from the beach to the bath, and don’t have to worry about damaging your device if it gets a bit damp.

E-Reader Prices

In total we found 14 E-book readers ranging from $86 to $819. A new E-reader costs on average $211 and 80% of ereaders are priced between $87 and $279. The cheapest E-book reader that we found is the Kobo Aura at only $86, and the most expensive is the Onyx Onyx Boox Max 2 at $819.

Ereader Brands - Price Range

The average price of Onyx E-readers is $819 which is the highest average price of all ereader brands. Onyx E-readers range in price from $819 to $819.

Pocketbook E-readers range in price from $215 to $238, and the average price of Pocketbook E-readers is $226 which is the second highest average price of all ereader brands.

The third highest average ereader price out of all brands is Kobo ereaders with an average price of $176. Kobo ereaders range in price from $86 to $279.

E-Book Reader Brands - Average Ratings

We have checked 804 expert reviews and 608 user reviews for ereaders and used this information to calculate the average rating for each brand of E-reader.

Biggest Ereader Retailers

The biggest ereader retailer by number of products currently for sale is eBay. We found 8 current ereader offers from eBay.

When Are Most New E-Readers Released?

We looked at the release dates for new E-book readers over the last 3 years, but couldn't see any prominent trend. One new E-readers were released in October 2019 making it the biggest month that year for new ereader releases. In 2018 most new ereaders were released in May, with three new ereaders released that month. July was the biggest month in 2017 for new E-readers, with five new E-readers released that month.

How Fast Do Ereader Prices Drop After Release?

New E-readers drop in price by an average of 16% in the first 6 months after they were first released.

That means that on a typical E-reader costing $211 you could save on average $35 by waiting 6 months before buying.

Weights

'Weight' denotes the weight of the e-reader, measured in grams (g).

Comparing all ereaders, the weights range from 110.2g to 550g. The weights of the majority of E-readers range from 160g to 200g. The E-book reader with the heaviest weight is the Onyx Onyx Boox Max 2, which is a 550g E-book reader and currently retails for $819.00. The Amazon Kindle Oasis - 9th Gen, which currently retails for $214.99, has the lightest weight and is a 131g E-reader.

Touchscreens

'Touchscreen' denotes whether the e-reader has touch capacity or not, meaning you can control the device by poking the screen, rather than manual controls.

The vast majority of the 79 new E-readers currently listed on Kagoo are E-book readers with a touchscreen. 67 E-readers (85%) are E-book readers with a touchscreen.

Display Resolutions

'Display Resolution' denotes how many pixels make up the display of the e-reader.

We found 21 ereaders that are E-readers that have a resolution of 800 x 600 pixels, which makes this the most common display resolution amongst new ereaders. We found 17 E-book readers that are ereaders that have a resolution of 1024 x 758 pixels, making this the second most frequently found display resolution amongst new E-book readers.

Diagonals

'Diagonal' denotes the size of the e-reader, measured in inches from the top-left to bottom-right corner.

The diagonals of E-readers range from 5" to 13.3". The diagonals of most E-book readers range from 6" to 6.5". The E-reader with the biggest diagonal is the Onyx Onyx Boox Max 2, which is a 13.3" E-book reader and sells for $819.00. The Kobo Aura, which is priced at $86.09, has the smallest diagonal and is a 6" ereader.

Which Are the Cheapest Retailers for E-Readers?

The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying E-book readers. For each retailer it shows the total number of E-book readers where they currently have a market leading price. The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying ereaders. For each retailer we took all of their prices and looked at what proportion of those prices where the cheapest on the market. The cheapest retailer that we found was eBay. 5 of their E-reader prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.

Proportion of E-Book Readers for Which Each Retailer is Cheapest?

Assessing how cheap each retailer is for ereaders by counting the number of cheapest prices for that retailer, makes the retailers that offer the greatest number of ereader prices more likely to offer the greatest number of cheapest prices. The chart below considers the proportion of each retailer's ereader prices that are the cheapest compared to other retailers. The cheapest retailer that we found using this approach was eBay. 62.5% of their E-reader prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.