If you love reading but hate having to find room for more books, the best e-readers can help by letting you carry a library's worth of text in your pocket or purse.
There are a lot of options on the market, but for my money I think the best e-reader for most folks is probably one of Amazon's Kindles because the e-commerce giant has sunk a fortune into its business of cranking out cheap, durable e-paper tablets.
I know because I've been reviewing e-readers for years, and my team and I regularly check out the latest models from Amazon, Kobo, ReMarkable and more. When readers ask me which e-reader to buy I typically recommend the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite because it's the luxury model of the best- e-reader on the market, so you enjoy premium features like (limited) waterproofing and adjustable screen warmth for a more comfortable reading experience.
But if you'd like to spend a little less and don't need those extra features, the basic Amazon Kindle is a great value, especially if you don't mind putting up with the lock screen ads. Conversely, if you don't mind paying more, the Kindle Colorsoft has all the features of the Paperwhite Signature Edition, with the added bonus of a color display.
Scroll down for more recommendations and full reviews of the best e-readers we've used to date!
The quick list
In a hurry? Here's a brief overview of the tablets on this list, along with quick links that let you jump down the page directly to a review of whichever tablet catches your eye.
Amazon's new Kindle Paperwhite (2024) strikes a nice balance of price and performance, offering you a dependable e-reader with a nice screen for under $200.
Amazon's basic Kindle is a good e-reader that can be yours for $99 if you're willing to put up with lockscreen ads. The latest model is as reliable as ever, has great battery life and USB-C charging at last, but it's still not waterproof.
The Amazon Kindle Kids Edition is a simplified version of the basic Kindle with good enough resolution, a kid-friendly interface, cute colorful cases and a 2-year warranty for peace of mind. If you want an e-reader for kids, this is the one to get.
The Kindle Colorsoft makes an impression thanks to its sharp and vibrant color display, lightweight design, long battery life and enormous Kindle library. While it's expensive at nearly $300, it delivers on the promise of providing the Kindle experience in color.
ReMarkable's Paper Pro aims to recreate the feeling of writing on paper and it works well, both in black and white and in 8+ colors. The e-paper display is great for reading and writing feels better than on any other slate, but the tablet is laggy enough to frustrate.
The best Kindles you can buy today
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The best Kindle overall
Small changes lead to great products staying great, and such is the case with the new Kindle Paperwhite (2024). It's got the same basic look as previous Kindles and Kindle Paperwhite models, a matte black shell and an e-ink screen, but this time it's larger, with a 7-inch panel. The bezels are also smaller, so the device didn't have to grow too much to accommodate the growth from a 6.8-inch panel.
While it's still a super-sharp 300-ppi display, it's now supported by an array of 17 LED backlights, for incredibly even lighting. And it's still got a great waterproofing (IPX8-rated) protection.
After the larger display, the big change this year is the improved performance and higher contrast ratio. Flipping through pages is 25% faster than before, and black text on white backgrounds appears clearer and more defined. Though we wish the power button had been moved to the top, we like this e-reader's premium design and appearance.
The new Paperwhite costs $10 more than the previous model. While that's a bummer, there are enough sales on Amazon that should help lower the cost if you find said sale at the right time. Overall, the Kindle Paperwhite is the best e-reader for most people thanks to its elegant design and robust library.
Read our full Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (2024) review.
The best value
The Amazon Kindle is a great e-reader that meets every need by being bright, long-lasting and comfortable to carry on long trips. The fact that you're locked into Amazon’s ecosystem is a drag, but you can’t knock the Kindle itself for Amazon's customer-unfriendly business practices.
That's not to say it's perfect, of course. There's room for improvement, like the fact that it's still not waterproof. This remains the biggest differentiator between it and the more expensive Paperwhite, and it feels like a slightly arbitrary difference intended to justify charging more for the Paperwhite.
Also, our reviewer missed having the option adjust the warmth of the display light, another minor but meaningful Paperwhite feature — though if you’re fine with using dark mode it’s easy to move past that shortcoming. Admittedly, if Amazon fixed those things there would be no reason to get the Paperwhite, so while we're disappointed, we aren't shocked that the base Kindle doesn't get these useful features.
Ultimately though, the Kindle 2022 is probably the best Kindle for most people. It’s lightweight and comfortable to hold, the display is bright and crisp — a massive improvement over earlier models — and the battery lasts for ages. Unless you really need a waterproof Kindle, it’s tough to advocate spending more than the $100 you'll pay for a new Amazon Kindle (2022).
Read our full Amazon Kindle review.
The best Kindle for kids
The Kids Edition is a version of the basic Kindle that's optimized for children by chipping away some of the non-essential cruft that fills up a regular Kindle and including features that make it well-suited for parents and families.
Kids will appreciate the brightly-colored protective cases, for example, while parents will love Amazon's 2-year no-questions-asked warranty. Even better, there are no lock screen ads on these Kindles, a nicety I wish Amazon would extend to the whole lineup.
In fact, the Kids Edition is so close to my ideal Kindle interface that I wish Amazon would offer it as a mode for adults who just want to read books without having to look at ads or be hassled by Goodreads prompts.
But there isn't much else that sets the Kids Editions of Amazon's Kindle e-readers apart from their mainline counterparts. These e-readers sport the same 6-inch, 167 ppi display and front lighting as the base Kindle, with the same thick chunk of plastic beneath the e-paper display for easy gripping.
One last extra benefit these kid-friendly slates offer for children: helpful vocabulary building tools and a free year of Amazon's Amazon Kids+ (a $60 value), which has thousands of kid-friendly books to read.
Read our full Amazon Kindle Kids Edition review.
Best color Kindle
The new Kindle Colorsoft features all the benefits of a Kindle, only in glorious color. If you want to see your books' covers or read comics in color, this is the Kindle you've been waiting for.
Design-wise, the Colorsoft is identical to the new Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition. It has a 7-inch 300ppi screen that can display both black-and-white and color images, though the latter drops to 150ppi. Don't worry, as everything still appears nice and sharp even at that lower resolution. Black-and-white content looks better than ever thanks to the display's higher contrast that makes black lines and text pop on what backgrounds.
We don't mind that Amazon didn't radically redesign the Colorsoft since we're fans of that classic form factor. As before, the matte-black chassis feels good to hold and prevents the device from slipping from your hand. Even though it's too big to fit inside of a normal-sized pocket, the Colorsoft is slim and light enough to slip into and carry around in your backpack. Unfortunately, the power button still resides on the bottom of the Kindle.
The Kindle Colorsoft finally delivers the promise of a color Kindle. While it's expensive at $280, we think it's well worth the price.
Read our full Kindle Colorsoft review.
The best for writers
While the new Kindle Scribe (2024) is available, its high price point makes it hard to recommend. Because of that, we think the ReMarkable Paper Pro is a better choice for those who want an e-reader they can write on.
The ReMarkable Paper Pro isn't just for reading - this e-paper tablet is built for writing, to the extent that you can't buy one without a ReMarkable Marker or Marker Plus (which has an eraser tool on the back) bundled in.
And while you can read your favorite ebooks just fine on this slate, you should only buy them if you also want to write on them or jot down your own notes as you go. This tablet is designed to mimic the feeling of putting pen to paper, and I genuinely enjoy the feeling of jotting down notes or editing manuscripts on the 11.8-inch e-paper display in action.
This is the first ReMarkable tablet to support color, too, which is fun if not vital to the tablet's mission. It supports less than ten colors, but you can still get a pretty good range of colors popping up both in books and under your stylus as you play with the suite of art tools included.
But you should know that this tablet is as slow to update as any other e-reader on this list, due to its e-paper nature. In my testing, I found that I would often notice a delay between when I drew a line or flipped a page and when the action actually happened on-screen.
So while this is a unique device that offers standout value for writers who want a tablet that mimics the feel of pen on paper while you're reading or marking up PDFs, everyone else should go with a more affordable, more durable Kindle for their e-reading habits.
Also tested
We test and review lots of e-readers every year, and just because they don't all make this list doesn't mean they aren't good devices.
Below we've gathered all the e-readers we've tested which don't quite make this list, but are still good alternatives well worth considering if they meet your unique needs, or if you can't find your first choice on sale.
Battery life claims compared
E-readers are built to go weeks between charges, a clear advantage these pint-sized slates offer over bigger, brighter, more capable tablets like the iPad. Sure, you can read ebooks on any tablet with the right apps, but an e-reader will last a week-long vacation in your bag without needing to be plugged in—can your iPad do that?
In fact, the lengthy battery life of these slates makes them challenging for us to test, because we have to use them for months at a time to see if the battery claims are accurate. We have done that on occasion, and we've found that in general manufacturer claims are pretty close to what we actually see in real-world use.
Since battery life is a key data point that can help some people choose between e-readers, we've compared the advertised battery life of all the tablets on this page below so you can quickly see which last the longest.
E-reader | Battery life (tested) |
Amazon Kindle | Up to 6 weeks |
Amazon Kindle Kids Edition | Up to 5 weeks |
Amazon Kindle Scribe | Up to 12 weeks |
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite | Up to 10 weeks |
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition | Up to 10 weeks |
Amazon Kindle Oasis | Up to 6 weeks |
ReMarkable Paper Pro | Up to 2 weeks |
As you can see, the Kindle Paperwhite is the clear leader of the pack with an advertised battery life of up to ten weeks. Note that Amazon typically couches these recommendations with the caveat that it's based on you using the tablet to read for about 30 minutes per day, with the brightness set a few pegs lower than max. If you tend to read more often, you'll likely need to charge more often too.
How to choose the best e-reader for you
Let's start with your budget, as that's the easiest way to make this call. If you're running tight right now, the entry-level Kindle is a solid recommendation. Its lighting is good enough for a handful of situations and its battery life is nothing to sneeze at. Frankly, as long as you're careful about keeping it out of the water I think the basic Kindle is just as good an e-reader as anything on this list.
But hey, if money is no option then you should probably be choosing between the Kindle Paperwhite and the Kindle Oasis, and this is sort of tough. If you prefer your devices to be built with a harder plastic, that still feels reliable, then you've probably got the Paperwhite in mind. It offers the same water resistance as the Oasis, and is similar in many regards.
But if you're tired of futzing with menus, and changing brightness, you will probably want the Kindle Oasis. Its display automatically adjusts to ambient lighting situations, maybe its best unique feature overall — as its metallic, not-symmetrical design is a bit divisive in our office.
And of course, if you want to be able to jot notes on your reading you'll probably want to choose between the Kindle Scribe or the ReMarkable Paper Pro. The Kindle Scribe is cheaper, but if you really love the look and feel of handwriting I recommend you at least try to check out ReMarkable's Paper Pro because, while it's more expensive, it also has a far more advanced stylus and screen that make it almost feel like you're writing on paper. It's a niche experience, but I've never felt anything like it on any other tablet.
How to download ebooks
Once you have a good ereader, you need a good library to fill it.
First and foremost, you should check out our guide on how to get free ebooks from sources like Amazon, public libraries, the public domain and more. If you have a Kindle you can send files in a range of formats (including .doc, .epub and .pdf) to your e-reader via Amazon's Send to Email feature, though that may not always be the case.
I say that because Amazon has a history of subtly changing its services over time to make them less useful. In early 2025, for example, Amazon stopped allowing you to download your Kindle eBooks as backups. You can still redownload books you've purchased on Amazon as many times as you want, but you can no longer back up your library and retain access in the event Amazon decides to stop letting you download a specific book.
If you don't own a Kindle, you have to deal with the hassle of not having easy access to Amazon's DRM-ridden Kindle ebook store. I've found a few great places on the web to buy books even if you don't use the Kindle store, so check out our list of the 5 best places to buy DRM-free ebooks and keep an eye out for deals!
To keep reading even when your e-reader is charging, I recommend you also download the best e-book reader apps for your smartphone or tablet.
How we tested these e-readers
To start, we read a lot on these Kindles. We don't just do that to see how much battery life is drained in a set of time (and to then compare against the estimations these manufacturers provide), but to discover what we like and don't like about a given Kindle. We then keep reading. At home, on the bus, in the park and anywhere else where the lighting changes.
In addition to evaluating e-readers' size, weight, claimed battery life and design choices, we test their brightness using our light meter. The experience of reading on the device also plays a huge role in these reviews. For instance, we look at the intuitiveness of the interface, the size of the available library and how well the special features (such as web browsers or dictionaries) work.
We've also tried alternatives to the Kindle, such as the Kobo Nia. While it's not one of our best picks, its interface is great for those who want to stay focused on books, and isn't as focused on supplementary content as Amazon's Kindles are.
We even drop water-proof Kindles into our makeshift dunk tank, and watch as they survive — the first time it was surprising, and now it's become something we expect. Lastly, we try and see if Amazon's changed anything about how Kindles work with public libraries. It's the one thing we prefer about competitors.
Alex Wawro is a lifelong journalist who's spent over a decade covering tech, games and entertainment. He oversees the computing department at Tom's Guide, which includes managing e-readers coverage and reviewing man yhimself every year.
