We’ll always love a good paperback or hardcover book, but let’s be honest: e-readers have changed everything. Perfect for when you’re reading something you’d… rather people not know about, or just want to pack in a 10-part ebook series for vacation, there’s no easier, suitcase-friendly way to do it than with an e-reader. You’ll find the latest from Amazon’s Kindle lineup below, along with key competitors like Kobo and Nook.
Whether you want to read in the bath or scribble notes in the margins, there’s an e-reader for just about everyone.
This is a great device for a certain kind of notetaker. Otherwise, a regular e-reader or tablet will do.
5
Verge Score
The latest smartphone-sized reader comes with a lot of new features. They’re not all upgrades.
Americans can now order Kobo e-readers and accessories from Amazon via Rakuten Kobo’s new storefront. Rakuten’s Amazon online store includes all of the current e-readers in its official lineup, including two of our favorite ebook readers: the Kobo Libra Colour and Elipsa 2E.
Amazon’s now rolling out all the latest Kindle Scribe AI features to 2024 and 2022 Scribe owners in the UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. As I wrote in my review, the AI features are the 2024 Scribe’s most notable upgrade as they let you directly annotate a wider range of Kindle ebook pages.
The news comes a couple of weeks after Amazon also started letting users scribble down notes in expandable margins.
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Verge Score
Amazon’s finally added a key feature to the Scribe, but it has a long way to go before it’s actually useful.
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Verge Score
Performance upgrades and screen improvements make the new Paperwhite’s minor updates feel more substantial.
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Verge Score
The Colorsoft is essentially a Paperwhite with a color screen. It might be worth waiting for a color Kindle Scribe instead.
0There are so many things about the Palma 2 that could be better. But it’s still great at what it does.
They’re more colorful than anything Amazon offers and have built-in support for Overdrive, but the UI feels more focused on selling books than reading them.
Amazon’s latest software update lets Kindle users adjust the lock screen timeout interval — previously set to 10 minutes — so you don’t have to keep waking up your Kindle if you need to take a longer break.
The update also gives the ability to filter the content of Kindle libraries by subscription type and reading format.
Jason Snell over at Six Colors has a review of the Boox Palma, a strange E Ink device that straddles the line between a phone and an e-reader.
The $280 Palma is not a phone, per se, as it doesn’t have any cellular connectivity. But it’s a six-inch, phone shaped thing that runs Android 11 and comes with an E Ink screen.
Snell notes that it works better than prior Boox devices because of some new software tweaks from Boox and the fact that Android apps still run best on a phone-shaped screen as opposed to a tablet. Still, I think I’ll wait for Boox to put these features on a larger screen.
[Six Colors]
It’s always refreshing when a promising new product enters an Amazon-dominated market, which is why I’m excited about Barnes and Noble’s Nook Glowlight 4 Plus. Available on September 6th, it seems to share much in common with the best e-readers, like waterproofing, a sharp display, and page-turning buttons. We’ll likely be testing it soon, so stay tuned.
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Verge Score
Amazon’s biggest Kindle ever is also the first to let you pair it with a stylus for note-taking. But crummy document syncing and lackluster software hold this E Ink device back.
An Android E Ink tablet isn’t for people looking for a smooth and seamless experience, but if you’re reading across a wide variety of apps, its flexibility is unparalleled.
The buttons are nice, but the trade-offs are hard to ignore
Torn between being a souped-up e-reader and a stripped-down tablet
The most popular Kindle gets its biggest update in nearly a decade
E Ink Kaleido is the best screen tech yet for color e-readers
It’s a Kindle. It does Kindle things
The best ebook reader becomes both bookstore and library
The bookseller-turned-manufacturer takes on the tablet goliaths
In an ultra-competitive 7-inch tablet market, is there room for one more?
Amazon’s fastest, most feature-packed e-reader hits a crowded market with a few new moves under its belt
An ebook reader you can read in the sun — and in the dark
Can Kobo jump into the cheap e-reader / tablet game and catch up to the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet?
Does the Nook Tablet have what it takes to extinguish the Kindle Fire?
Amazon reinvents the Kindle with the all-new Kindle Touch. But how far have we really come?
