The best e-readers of 2024, tried and tested

Whether your home is crowded with too many books or you simply want to bring an all-digital library on vacation, now’s a great time to invest in an e-reader for your at-home and on-the-go reading pleasure. The displays are optimized for reading, and without the distractions of messaging, games and video found in phones and tablets, you’ll get a more focused reading experience. Over the years, we’ve tested more than 16 e-reader models, and these four stood out above the rest.

Best e-reader: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (2024)

For a while, a new Kindle Paperwhite meant a little tweak here or there. Yes, the move from a 6-inch to a 6.8-inch screen was a newsworthy jump for those fitting their e-reader into a smaller bag or purse, but at a certain point, the biggest talking point was that Amazon was switching to the USB-C port. The 12th-generation Kindle Paperwhite, though, changes everything, thanks to its new display tech. Underneath the slightly larger 7.0-inch screen in the 2024 Kindle Paperwhite, Amazon’s dropped in a new oxide backplane that allows its E Ink pixels to move at much faster rates than we’ve ever seen. This means that pages turn far more quickly and seamlessly than ever before, and make the Kindle Paperwhite feel like a more modern device that isn’t stuck in the past.

That comes as basically a bonus to the existing Kindle Paperwhite we’ve all grown to love. Text looks super sharp on this 300-pixels-per-inch display, which sits inside an ever-evolving form that’s still light enough for extended reading sessions. You still get thin bezels, which may be much smaller than what you’re used to, as I’ve seen chunkier predecessors when talking with Kindle users I’ve surveyed as of late. And the Paperwhite still packs an IPX8 waterproof rating, meaning it can take a spilled glass of water or worse. To prove it, we dropped our review unit in a sink full of water and let it sit there for an hour. It still worked when we pulled it from the drink.

You also get the same display tech as before with both brightness and warmth controls, with the latter designed to help you wind down at the end of the day. We’ve long thought that warmth was reason enough to upgrade from the regular Kindle, but since many have gotten that in their Paperwhite by now, we are pleased to see Amazon flip the script with the performance upgrade that makes us see this e-reader in a whole new light. We found that the Paperwhite is still an endurance beast, with our usage suggesting one charge should last a month of average reading and downloading. Amazon rates the Paperwhite for up to three months of battery life, but that’s with internet turned off and limited daily usage.

That said, there is some reason to consider upgrading to the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, which costs $40 more. Our favorite reason is to remove the lockscreen ads (though Amazon will let you do this for just $20). You also get automatically adjusting front lighting, to reduce the amount of taps you’ll make when switching rooms with different ambient light. The Signature Edition also packs wireless charging and twice as much storage (moving from 16GB to 32GB).

There’s only one thing missing from the Paperwhite: page-turn buttons, which are only available on the Kobo Libra e-readers. But thanks to the new model’s performance upgrade, which even makes typing better, we didn’t miss them here. Reading on the Kindle Paperwhite is a joy, and at a reasonable price point, it’s a no-brainer purchase for yourself or a gift to someone else.

Best color screen e-reader: Kobo Libra Colour

Kindle competitor Rakuten Kobo is leading the e-reader market out of the black-and-white “Pleasantville” aesthetic and into a brave new world of hues. The Libra Colour, which launched alongside the smaller Clara Colour, is an e-reader we love for more than just its 7-inch E Ink Kaleido 3 screen.

Check out our full Kobo Libra Colour review to learn everything we love about this e-reader and if it’s a viable Kindle alternative for you.

Yes, a color e-reader feels long overdue, but this tablet also has physical navigation buttons that Amazon doesn’t offer anymore (RIP Kindle Oasis). Those who want to actually scribble in the margins, which you can’t even do on the Kindle Scribe, will also be pleased to see you can write on the pages with the optional Kobo Stylus 2.

Best e-reader for kids: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Kids

The Kindle Paperwhite Kids is nearly identical to the new 12th-generation Kindle Paperwhite in that it boasts a 7-inch screen, a waterproof design, 300-pixels-per-inch resolution, 16GB of storage and adjustable warm light. The difference? It comes with a kid-friendly sleep cover and one year of Amazon Kids+ for free, which offers access to a large library of popular kids’ books.

The upgraded screen real estate, water resistance and optional Amazon Kids+ subscription make this the ideal e-reader for kids, usurping our former favorite pick for kids, the Kindle Kids. Bonus: If you see this version of the Kindle Paperwhite on sale for less than the 12th-generation Kindle Paperwhite, snatch it up for yourself because there’s no difference in the software or hardware between the two, and it will allow you to read adult books on it as well. Oh, and there are no lockscreen ads on this model either.

Best pocket-friendly e-reader: Boox Palma

With a 6.13-inch screen size and approximately 6-ounce weight, the Boox Palma is one of the lightest, most compact e-readers on the market, making it an ideal E Ink device for subway commuting, airport traveling and public e-reading. Our hands never got tired holding it for hours at a time, and although its materials feel a little plasticky, we appreciated its grippy back and palmable size.

We loved listening to audiobooks with our Bluetooth headphones connected, and with the ability to download apps like Spotify via the Palma’s Android 11 OS, we could even listen to music while reading on the go. Just be warned that we experienced rapid battery drain with Bluetooth turned on.

Speaking of Android OS, we found the user interface to be rather pleasing on the Palma, with minimalist app icons and the ability to enable an always-on lock screen that displays the time, date, battery level and monthly calendar. (We even picked up one of these affordable cell phone stands to show off the Palma on our nightstand.)

There is, however, a brief barrier to entry in terms of adjusting page-turn response and refresh rate to your liking on the Palma. We found it took a little  work to get things perfect in  the settings menu, unlike with, say, a Kindle that’s pretty much ready to use out of the box. Once you’ve fine-tuned the e-reader to your liking, it’s a joy to bring pretty much everywhere you’d bring your cell phone.

Though the Boox Palma 2 is already here, we don’t expect its slightly updated specs — a fingerprint lock, Android 13 — to make its higher price tag worth it, especially now that the original Palma is seeing significant discounts. We’ll be sure to update this review, though, once we go hands-on with it.

How we tested

We spent hours reading a multitude of books on each e-reader over the course of a month, noting special features like waterproofness in addition to accessibility features, ease of navigation of the user interface, overall design, screen size, library support and battery. Below are the criteria we used to judge each e-reader.

Other e-readers we tested

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story featured since-discontinued e-readers such as the Kindle Oasis, Kobo Forma, Kobo Libra H2O and earlier generations of the Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Kids e-readers.

The Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition is identical to our best e-reader pick, the 12th-generation Kindle Paperwhite, except for two new premium features: wireless charging and an auto-adjusting front light. While both offer more convenience, we don’t think they’re worth the extra $40 for everyone because you’ll rarely have to charge your Kindle anyway and adjusting brightness isn’t that difficult. You do, however, get the ad-free experience included, as opposed to the $20 free for this service on the regular Paperwhite.

Amazon recently updated the Kindle Scribe with a 2024 model that we look forward to testing, as the original 10.2-inch e-reader offered a hybrid Kindle and iPad gadget that was meant to be the ultimate tablet. Not only does it provide the standard Kindle experience on its massive screen but it converts handwriting to text, which is an utter game changer of a feature. Unfortunately, it’s a bit pricey and its software came up a bit lacking when compared to the excellent ReMarkable 2 E Ink tablet.

The Kobo Sage, much like the Libra Colour, lets you use a compatible Kobo Stylus to highlight passages or jot down notes in books. You can also keep notes or drawings on the Sage, giving it some tablet-like functionality. All this is done on an 8-inch screen — one of the largest e-reader screens available — so if a large screen size matters to you, this could be a good option. However, its large size makes it difficult to read one-handed, and its flat, difficult-to-press page-turn buttons are spaced too far apart to make reading with them comfortable.

This is a great device for writers or college students who could benefit from the stylus functionality, but for those looking for an e-reader above all, you’re better off with the Kindle Paperwhite. It, ultimately, features a better design and more intuitive page-turn buttons.