The best e-readers to shop during Amazon's Big Spring Sale

For serious readers who don't mind splurging a little, the Kobo Libra Colour delivers an upgraded e-reader experience. With a similar seven-inch display, the Libra Colour offers something the Kindle Paperwhite cannot: Color. Book covers and in-book illustrations and photos are all featured in color with the Libra. And if you're an annotator, you can highlight and mark up your pages in different colors to stay organized.

It's equipped with more than enough storage at 32GB and is waterproof. Plus, if you were devastated by the discontinuation of the Kindle Oasis, the Libra Colour offers a similar design that includes page-turning buttons.

If you were to ask me which e-reader to buy, it's a real toss-up between the Kindle Paperwhite and the Kobo Libra Colour. While the Kobo Libra Colour is expensive at $219.99, it's worth its price tag, something I can't say is true for Amazon's Paperwhite Signature Edition.

Above all, the Kobo Libra Colour has the best ergonomic design. It's more square than a Kindle, as one side offers extra space for page-turning buttons. This makes it easier to hold, especially while lying down and reading one-handed. It's the only e-reader (besides the iPad) on this list that has an internal gyroscope, so when you rotate the device, the display rotates with it. While reading in bed, if I flipped over, I could rotate the device to still be able to hold it on the side with page-turning buttons.

The Overdrive (aka Libby) integration is great as you can log in with your library card and your borrowed e-books instantly populate on the Overdrive tab. While this is a more seamless integration than Kindle, I do have some minor beef with it. On a Kobo you can only log in to one library card at a time, so if you borrow using multiple cards, you might be signing in and out of different accounts often. Plus, while using the Kobo Libra Colour, one of the library books I borrowed wasn't available on the Kobo and I had to switch to the Paperwhite to be able to access it.

While the color display on the Kobo is nice, it is still rather muted. While reading Heartstopper, the colors were quite toned down in comparison to how they appeared on the iPad Mini. The Libra Colour's battery life isn't as strong as a Kindle Paperwhite's. While testing the Kobo Libra Colour over ten weeks, my colleague Bethany Allard had to charge the device twice. Plus, it's a bit slower than a Kindle with the occasional stall while switching between books.

While the Kindle may have the Kobo beat on processing and battery life, I still think the Libra Colour is a worthy upgrade as it offers the best design of an e-reader with the perk of color. Amazon's first color e-reader, the Colorsoft, costs $279.99, so at $219.99, the Libra is a bargain.

Read our full review of the Kobo Libra Colour.

If you want to dip your toes into e-readers, the standard Kindle model is the best budget-friendly model. Like the Paperwhite, it has 16GB of storage, with room for thousands of books. It’s the smallest Kindle, and you won’t miss the size of the Paperwhite. Instead, you’ll be delighted that it’s genuinely pocket-sized. Plus, if you want an e-reader with some flair, it’s now available in black and matcha, a vibrant light green.

After testing the Kindle Paperwhite and Kobo Libra Colour, I thought I’d be ruined for the basic Kindle, but I found it to be an equally great device. It comes in a smaller package, the lightest e-reader here. Plus, the six-inch size makes it practically pocket-sized. Generally, it feels nicer to hold in my hand and bring on the go with me — exactly what I want in an e-reader.

Sure, it’s not as high-tech as the Paperwhite, but I think it’s an even better size. The screen has the exact resolution as the Paperwhite, but just a bit smaller. You lose some screen space with its plastic casing, but I didn’t mind. I liked the rimmed front design, making it easier to hold while using. It also has the bottom power button, which is far less touchy than the other Kindle models, and it was harder to turn the device on or off accidentally.

Functionally, it’s comparable to the Paperwhite. The biggest feature the standard Kindle lacks is adjustable warmth, which I worked around by using Dark Mode at night. However, the standard Kindle would be perfect if it was waterproof. That’s the biggest downside to me, as someone who needs to be able to take it to the beach.

That being said, it is the most affordable, and it's a worthy sacrifice not to have waterproofing for its $109.99 price.

Read our full review of the Kindle (2024).

If, looking through your bookshelf, your books have dog-eared pages, highlighted lines, and scribbles in the margins, your instinct might be that an e-reader isn't for you, but I'd like to introduce you to the Kindle Scribe, that comes with a stylus and writing capabilities.

The pen moves nicely across the screen, mimicking the texture of writing on paper. In addition to a library of books, the Kindle Scribe also comes with a journal section where you can take notes. The notes feature is especially great for students who want to handwrite notes and convert their handwriting into text.

If you jump to a Kindle Scribe from the base Kindle or even Paperwhite, you'll be shocked by its 10.2-inch size. That screen size does make it a little more awkward to hold, but for writing or annotating, it's optimal. Unlike other tablets (I'm looking at you, iPads) that require you to buy a pen separately, the Kindle Scribe comes with a pen that conveniently attaches to the side so it doesn't get lost. However, it's not the most secure magnetic hold, so be careful not to bump the pen off accidentally.

Writing on the Kindle Scribe is a joy. Before testing this e-reader, I used my iPad and Apple Pencil to annotate readings, but I never loved it because the screen felt too slick for the Apple Pencil. The Kindle Scribe does not suffer this problem, as the matte screen lends some friction to the pen, making it feel like you're writing on paper. I enjoyed writing with the pen, and I swear my handwriting looked better on the Kindle Scribe than on my iPad.

Like the Kindle Paperwhite, the Scribe's battery life lasts 12 weeks. Where it starts to differ is the user interface. The Kindle Scribe runs far slower than Amazon's other e-readers. The 2024 Scribe did give its speed a slight upgrade, but it still suffers the same problem as previous models. The Scribe often lagged when starting to wake up or switching between journals or books. This is especially disappointing considering the price, which is more than double that of the Paperwhite.

The 2024 Scribe does have great palm rejection, especially in comparison to the Kobo Libra. The Scribe's screen also got a brighter revamp, now available with adjustable warmth and brightness. However, it suffers from ghosting on the screen with erased text and book covers still appearing in the background. It also has upgraded storage options at 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB.

That being said, if you want to annotate PDFs and docs, the Kindle Scribe is your best and only Kindle option.

Read our full review of the Kindle Scribe (2024).

There are so many devices that the modern person is meant to have. If adding an e-reader seems superfluous, I'd recommend a tablet that allows you to read books, stream shows, and browse the internet. The best tablet for reading? It's the iPad mini.

But why is this iPad better than any other? It's all about the size. At 8.3 inches, it comfortably sits in your hand and is about the same size as a paperback.

Before testing these e-readers, I read using my 9th-generation iPad, and my main complaint was always the size. After 30 minutes of reading, my hand and wrist would strain holding up all 10.2 inches of the screen. That's why the 8.3-inch display of the iPad mini was such a treat. Reading with the mini made me feel like I was holding an actual book rather than a laptop screen.

Unsurprisingly, the iPad mini has the most computing power of all the e-readers on this list. It jumps between apps and turns pages without an ounce of hesitation. Plus, it offers the most expansive ways to read books. You can read using Apple's built-in Apple Books app or download and read within the Kindle and Libby apps. And unlike most e-readers, you can read comics and graphic novels in full color. Plus, it has far more storage than any other e-reader, as the new 7th generation iPad mini now starts at 128GB of storage.

Despite my love of the iPad mini, I have some beef, most of which is with the screen. While I love its overall size, it has a substantial glare problem. I've found this to be true with any iPad I've read on; the slick glass screen has a glare in almost any environment. That's no surprise in the sun, but even at night, I found the screen to be a little too shiny, causing my eyes to have some trouble focusing. This does have a fix; if you want your iPad screen to look more like the matte of a Kindle, a screen protector such as Paperlike creates that effect.

Additionally, compared to e-readers, which provide months of battery life, the iPad mini only gets you hours. If you're reading for a couple of hours a day, you're probably only charging the iPad once a week, which isn't a big deal but certainly more than a traditional e-reader.

Read our full review of the Apple iPad mini.