E-readers have come a long way since Amazon introduced the first Kindles in 2007. Current models run much faster and are more portable than older ones, but Amazon hasn't been the only brand making its mark on e-readers for some time. Kobo, Amazon's main competitor, has a wider range of devices now, offering six models to Amazon's three. 

It's important to note that Kobo devices each come in one version, while Amazon sells each of its Kindles in two: with special offers (ads) and without. If you choose the ones with special offers, you will see ads on the lock screen instead of a neutral screensaver or the cover of the book you're currently reading. Typically, the ads will be for romance novels available with a Kindle Unlimited subscription. 

We have extensively tested nearly every current e-reader over the past few months, flying through novels to determine which devices are the best ones for readers across the price spectrum. As e-book lovers, we have found that each e-reader below has something different to offer — whether you love page turn buttons, need something waterproof, or even a stylus — across a range of budgets. 

Best overall e-reader: Kindle Oasis, available at Amazon, starting at $249.99 Amazon's Kindle Oasis delivers the best reading experience due to its ergonomic design, responsive page turn buttons, and auto-adjusting screen brightness, in addition to a huge library of ebooks. 

Best e-reader under $100: Kindle, available at Amazon, starting at $89.99 At less than $100, Amazon's basic Kindle, which has a front-lit screen and space for thousands of books, is the best e-reader option for readers on a budget.

Best e-reader under $200: Kobo Libra 2, available at Amazon, starting at $179.99 The Kobo Libra 2 has page turn buttons, an easy-to-use interface, and makes it very easy to get library books directly on the device.

Best touchscreen e-reader: Kindle Paperwhite, available at Amazon, starting at $139.99 With a newly updated design, waterproof rating, and great battery life, the Kindle Paperwhite is the best choice for readers who prefer touchscreens. 

Best tablet for reading: iPad, available at Apple, starting at $329 Apple's basic iPad is cheaper than Kobo's similarly sized e-reader and has a color screen, making it the best choice for people who read a lot of comics and graphic novels.

Amazon's Kindle Oasis delivers the best reading experience due to its ergonomic design, responsive page turn buttons, and auto-adjusting screen brightness, in addition to a huge library of ebooks. 

Pros: Bright and responsive screen, page turn buttons, design ideal for one-handed reading, huge ebook store, easy library access, Bluetooth for Audible audiobooks, dark mode

Cons: It's one of the most expensive e-readers on the market

The greatest feature of the Kindle Oasis, and part of the reason why it's the best e-reader we've ever read on, is its design. Unlike the other two Kindles Amazon makes, the Kindle Oasis has aluminum casing and a matte, fingerprint-resistant glass screen. The sleek metal is incredibly lightweight and a unique tapered design creates a built-in grip to help you hold the device one-handed. 

The page turn buttons, which we find to be more responsive than buttons on other e-readers we've tested, make it easy to read no matter which your dominant hand is. The device's default is for right-handed people, but the screen and buttons automatically rotate when being held in the other hand.  

Much like an iPhone, the Kindle Oasis has an automatically adjusting brightness sensor. There are two on either side of the page turn buttons that read the light of the environment you're reading in and adjust the screen's brightness accordingly. 

A feature many of these e-readers now have is a warm light that helps with eye strain by softening the harshness of the screen brightness. The Kindle Oasis has this, too, but also the ability to not only schedule it to turn on and off at specific times, but also choose how warm the screen gets. The warmer you go, the more sepia-toned the screen will look. 

The Kindle Oasis supports files purchased from the Kindle store, in addition to PDFs and soon, even EPUB files will load on Kindles, closing the gap between Kindle and its competitors even more. You can even get library books on the Kindle Oasis through a process with a few steps, but it's all done over Wi-Fi.

With a thin, sleek construction and a responsive interface, the Kindle Oasis is the best e-reader on the market right now. It has everything we want out of a good e-reader: page turn buttons, access to library books, and a nice, bright screen.

At less than $100, Amazon's basic Kindle, which has a front-lit screen and space for thousands of books, is the best e-reader option for readers on a budget. 

Amazon's basic Kindle is a great e-reader for the price, especially considering it frequently goes on sale. Though the screen may not be the largest or the sharpest, it performs well over long periods of time and is a manageable, compact size. All Kindles come with the same interface, so while the device itself may differ from the more expensive Kindles, it works in the same way. 

While the screen isn't as bright or sharp as the Kindle Paperwhite, Amazon's more expensive touchscreen e-reader, the four LEDs in the front light are bright enough that you can use the Kindle to read in the dark. The device itself has a 6-inch screen and it's very light, making it comfortable to hold for long periods of time. 

This Kindle isn't much larger than the average smartphone, fits inside of most bags nicely, and is ideal for reading on-the-go (for example, on public transportation or waiting in line somewhere). However, this could also be seen as a detriment to people who prefer a larger screen — you can make the font size bigger to make up for that, but it only does so much. 

Amazon has a large library with millions of ebooks available for purchase on the e-reader itself in addition to phones and Amazon's website. Like the Kindle Oasis, you can bolster your ebook library with a Kindle Unlimited subscription and download eligible books right on the device as long as you're connected to Wi-Fi.

The Kobo Libra 2 has page turn buttons, an easy-to-use interface, and makes it very easy to get library books directly on the device.

Pros: Easy to get library books with OverDrive integration, page turn buttons, Bluetooth for Kobo Audiobooks

Cons: Doesn't support Kindle files, battery does not last as long as other e-readers, no ebook subscription service

Kobo Libra 2 is the cheapest in Kobo's line of six e-readers to have page turn buttons, which is a heavy preference of mine when I'm using an e-reader. 

The page turn buttons on the Kobo Libra 2 are customizable, so you can change the configuration if you'd rather the back button be the bottom one instead of the top one, which is the default. Unique to the Kobo line, you can also read in landscape mode with the page turn buttons on the bottom of the "page" instead of the right or left. 

Kobo Libra 2 has Kobo's ComfortLight Pro technology built into the screen. In addition to having a really crisp, bright display (we've found that 50% brightness is best on this e-reader), you can turn on scheduled warmth for more natural nighttime screen color. This is helpful for people who primarily read at night because it cuts down on blue light that strains your eyes and disrupts your sleep.

To get books on the Libra 2, you can go through Kobo's store, which has millions of books, directly on the device. You can also get library books directly on the device, something that none of the Kindles have support for. Simply sign into OverDrive with your public library credentials and you can start borrowing available books directly from their store pages. 

At this price point, Kobo is better than Kindle because the Libra 2 most closely resembles our best overall pick, the Kindle Oasis, but is up to $100 cheaper. Though the interface differs from the Kindle, the page turn buttons and easy access to library books make it the best e-reader under $200. 

With a newly updated design, waterproof rating, and great battery life, the Kindle Paperwhite is the best choice for readers who prefer touchscreens.

Pros: Great battery life, bright screen, waterproof rating, access to Kindle store, Bluetooth for Audible audiobooks, dark mode

Cons: No page turn buttons, only comes in 8GB

Amazon's mid-range Kindle, the Paperwhite, takes some of the high-end features of the Oasis and applies them to the design and shape of the basic Kindle. The 6.8-inch screen, which is bigger than the basic Kindle but smaller than the Oasis, is flush with its border and has 17 LED front lights which make the display crisp at the highest brightness. 

Readers who are dead-set on their e-readers having page turn buttons should consider the Kindle Oasis instead, but the Kindle Paperwhite delivers such an enjoyable reading experience that we don't find ourselves missing them when we pick up the Paperwhite and settle in for some reading time. The slight curved edge and rubbery plastic back make it easy to hold one-handed without too much slipping — as long as you're holding it in your right hand.  

The Kindle Paperwhite has an unrivaled battery that is said to last 10 weeks, to the Oasis' six, with similar use. In the process of testing, we took a fully charged Paperwhite on a long day trip with me; after reading on it for most of a train ride from New York City to Washington DC and back again (about seven hours total) with the brightness set at 13, we had only used 9% of the battery. 

We've noticed that sometimes touch-screen e-readers that don't have any buttons are less responsive to page turns and menu selections with a lag time between touching the screen and the device responding, but we never have that problem with the Kindle Paperwhite. The matte finish to the screen is glare-free and fingerprints and smudges don't show up. 

Finally, Audible subscribers can also use the e-reader's built-in Bluetooth to listen to audiobooks with a pair of wireless headphones. 

Apple's basic iPad is cheaper than Kobo's similarly sized e-reader and has a color screen, making it the best choice for people who read a lot of comics and graphic novels.

Pros: Color screen, good battery life, carries the apps from all major e-reader brands

Cons: Not strictly an e-reader, not water resistant

Though we are primarily e-reader users, we'll always default to our iPad for graphic novels and comics because it's easier to see full pages on a bigger, full color screen. Graphic novels and comics can be read on e-readers including all of the ones listed above, but since none of them have a color screen, a major part of the reading experience is lost. 

The basic iPad, which last saw an update in September 2021, isn't strictly an e-reader, but it's our pick for the best tablet for reading. Through the app store, you can download the app from your e-reader company of choice, whether it's Kindle, Kobo, or Nook, plus apps like Libby and Hoopla for library users looking to borrow ebooks. Apple even has their own bookstore and Books app if you don't own ebooks from other retailers. 

Even with a Retina display instead of the standard E Ink of an e-reader, the iPad has ways to mitigate eye strain. The Night Shift setting will soften the harsh blue light from the screen, and you can also turn on dark mode, which swaps the background and text colors.

We tested other e-readers in the process of writing this guide. Here are a few that left an impression:

To test an e-reader, you have to read extensively on it. We set up all of the e-readers, noting how easy or difficult that process was, before checking out the device's bookstore to see what the process of purchasing and downloading a book was like. We then purchased and downloaded a book. Additionally, we researched how to get library loans on each e-reader.

We read one full novel on each e-reader, noting differences such as the number of adjustable fonts and text sizes, and if it was easy to turn the page either using the touch screen or page turn buttons. We took note of the brightness settings on each e-reader and whether it had adjustable warmth in addition to adjustable brightness. We also took into consideration the e-readers' sizes to determine if they were easy to hold one-handed and comfortable to hold and read on for extended periods of time. 

We went through the settings menus as well, trying out any settings we thought would enhance our reading experience. This included listening to audiobooks where applicable and testing out features like dark mode and adjustable warmth scheduling.  

All of the e-readers' manufacturers have claims about battery life. After charging the e-readers to 100%, we spent a week per device testing the batteries myself to see how they hold up under identical conditions that reflect the most common use: Wi-Fi on, Bluetooth off (in the case that the e-reader had Bluetooth), and brightness set at 50% with any auto-adjusting sensors turned off.

If you read daily, you should get an e-reader instead of a tablet. The E Ink screens and warmth settings that most e-readers have now help mitigate eye strain that typically comes from extended exposure to blue light screens. However, if you typically read a lot of graphic novels or comics with color illustrations, a tablet may actually be a better choice for you.

It's simple to get library ebooks on Kobo and Kindle devices with the introduction of the Libby app. Kobo e-readers come with OverDrive pre-installed, so all you have to do is sign in with your public library credentials and you'll be able to borrow books from the library directly on the device.

If you have a Kindle, it's a few more steps and you'll need a smartphone connected to Wi-Fi as well, but through the Libby app, you can connect multiple library cards to an account which increases the amount of books you're able to borrow.

The cheapest e-reader is the Amazon Kindle, which we also recommend as the best e-reader under $100. 

Yes, but color e-readers are few and far between. Barnes and Noble sells an HD Nook tablet, which we have not tested. If you're the kind of reader who prefers larger, color screens for reading, we recommend the iPad. 

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