E-book readers

What's behind our E-book reader Ratings?

Experts at our National Testing and Research Center tested 27 models in E-book readers to see which ones perform best.

We look for:

Overall score
Overall score is in performance order, based on display readability, e-reader versatility, performance, page turn, navigation and file versatility. The displayed score is out of a total of 100 points.
Readability
Readability is a measurement of how well the e-reader can be viewed in various lighting conditions. E-readers are tested in bright sunlight, a room replicating an average lit room and a dimly lit room.
Versatility
Versatility mainly includes characteristics that aid in usefulness and convenience. Those include the presence of hardware and menu-based navigation features. Also considered are the number of memory-card slots, built-in memory, power and headphones jacks, touch screen, physical keyboard, WiFi, and accelerometer among other features.
Responsiveness
Responsiveness is a speed measurement of how quickly an e-reader can turn on from full off, resume from sleep, open an e-book, and transfer an e-book from a computer via USB.
Page Turn
Page turn is mostly a performance measurement of how quickly an e-reader can turn to the next page of an e-book. It also takes into account the page turning experience and such qualities as whether or not the screen blinks while page turning, if there are dedicated page forward and back buttons, placement of those buttons and presence of a physical keyboard.
Navigation
Navigation includes the ability of the e-reader to rotate to landscape and portrait mode, automatically and manually bookmark a page, search for an e-book, search through an online bookstore and the presence of an accelerometer.
File Support
This is a rating of typical e-book formats supported as well as other typical file formats you may want to read on an e-reader. The following formats are rated; EPUB, PDF, MOBI, Word documents, TXT, RTF, JPEG and GIF.
Claimed battery life
This is the manufacturer's stated battery life. Most vendors report this in hours but some report it in number of page turns.
Viewable display size
Viewable display size is the size of the display screen, measured diagonally to the nearest 10th of an inch.
Touch screen
Full touch-sensitive displays respond to light contact with a stylus, finger, or both. They provide an alternate, and sometimes more direct, method to input data and launch e-book reader features and controls. But they smudge more frequently than their non-touch counterparts.

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E-book reader buying guide

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Though the Amazon Kindle and other so-called e-book readers may be hot topics on technology blogs, a lot of their buyers are hardly gadget freaks. They're simply people, some of them decidedly ungeeky, who love to read books. If you're looking for information about e-book readers, Consumer Reports is your best resource. Consumer Reports’ e-book reader reviews will give you honest buying advice that you can trust. Use our e-book reader buying guide to discover which features are most important to consider. We also provide unbiased Ratings and e-book reader reviews to help you choose the best e-book reader for your needs.

Ratings & recommended E-book readers

E-book readers (27)

Performance varies widely among models, as our Ratings show. the best make loading and reading books relatively effortless, while the lowest scoreres might frustrate event the long-suffering bookworms.

The Ratings list products strictly by performance, within categories (5-inch or smaller display, 6-7-inch display, and 8-inch or larger display).

E-book reader buying guide

What are e-book readers anyway? They're portable devices, typically with 5-to-10-inch screens, primarily designed to display the digitized versions of printed books. They're typically quite light--mostly 8 ounces or so and up--and are about as thin as many smart phones. Prices typically range from $140 to $400, though some models cost $100 or so.

Most use technologies such as E Ink that rely on reflected ambient light to illuminate their screen. That gives them a relatively long battery life--thousands of page turns, ... Read more

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