If you are thinking about switching from physical books to eBooks, you need to find out the best eBook apps for Android. As amazing as traditional books are, they are often heavy, expensive, and can take up a lot of space in a tight apartment, making the switch to e-books worth it.
The good thing is that you have several options depending on where you want to get your eBooks and how you want them to look on the screen of your Android phone or tablet.
With that in mind, take a look at our selection of the best e-book reading apps on Android!
Amazon Kindle
Amazon Kindle leads the way with a massive library of content, including free e-books and content from independent publishers that you can read on your mobile or desktop using the Kindle app. There’s sure to be a book for you, no matter what genre you’re looking for.
In the app, you can also customize fonts, margins, line spacing, and organize the downloaded books into collections to make it easier for you to find the book you want to read. Kindle also remembers the page you left reading on when you change devices. This means you can switch between your phone, tablet and PC without ever losing your page. Or you can just get something like the latest Amazon Kindle Scribe, one of Amazon Kindle’s best e-readers, and switch back and forth between it and your smartphone.
The Kindle app is so versatile that you can even send other reading pieces to the app, such as articles saved in Instapaper. You can also sign up for Kindle Unlimited and get access to more than a million titles for $11.99 per month.
Moon+ Reader
While the ability to buy books from a major retailer and download them all to your phone is great, sometimes you already have the books you want to read in digital form. Whether you purchased e-books from an independent publisher or received the files from a now-defunct program, it’s important to be able to open and read them properly, and that’s where Moon+ Reader comes into play.
This app is light, easy to use and very straightforward. I personally prefer this over the Kindle app on my Android devices. It supports more than 10 different file formats, from RAR to EPUB. Additionally, you can customize how words appear on screen, back up your library online, and access five auto-scrolling options, among many fantastic features. With the ability to view content in different formats, it’s easy to see why Moon+ Reader is one of the best Android apps and not just one of the best eBook apps for Android.
Libby
The days of having to go to your local library to pick up some new books to read are long gone. Thanks to the digital world and apps like Libby, your library is now available everywhere.
If you live near a participating library, Libby will open up a world with a variety of new books available to you. In addition to audio books, there are standard books that can be easily “checked out”. Both can be saved for offline use, so you can read them even if you don’t have an internet connection.
For those who enjoy reading on a Kindle, Libby makes it easy to borrow a book and then simply send it to a reading device. The app has all the customization options you would expect, so you can read and even take notes right within the app. Did you just notice a word you’ve never seen before? Libby can even define it for you in the app, so you don’t have to open another app in the middle of an intense chapter.
Google Play Books
Google Play Books gives you access to a wide selection of books, some of which are free. You will also find some textbooks, although we would like to see an improvement in the selection of textbooks. You can read books offline, use a dictionary to look up unfamiliar words, and save your notes and entries in a book across multiple devices using your Google Account.
If you set up a family account, you can share books with everyone without having to purchase them multiple times. Staying in the Google ecosystem also makes it easy to share your purchases with family members and keep all your media in one place.
Kobo
Kobo has been around for quite some time and is now part of Rakuten, but that hasn’t stopped it from being great. This app is a great way to read your favorite e-books, whether they’re on your phone or tablet. There is a huge selection of new and established authors, including magazines and children’s books. The most popular and trending eBooks are even updated hourly, so you won’t miss a great story, even if it’s from an author you’ve never heard of.
When you start buying books and Kobo learns your preferences, it creates a recommendation list with suggestions for new books or magazines. There’s also a great reading activity feature that shows you how much time you’ve spent reading in the app, what books you’re currently reading, a running list of how many books you’ve read, and even how many pages you have in the process initiated.
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PocketBook is another one of those apps that makes reading books easier, no matter what format they are in. The app supports more than 25 different formats, so you can read magazines and comics or even listen to your favorite audio books.
PocketBook’s biggest advantage over similar apps has everything to do with cloud syncing. PocketBook Cloud syncs your progress for everything uploaded to the app, so you can start reading on your phone, then pick up right where you left off in a browser. You can even sync files from cloud storage services like Dropbox and Google Drive if you don’t want to manually upload the books to your phone.
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While Amazon has always been an online-only store, Barnes & Noble is one of the largest bookstores still in existence. In order to keep up with the times, the company introduced a series of e-readers a few years ago. After this unsuccessful attempt, Barnes & Noble has now largely switched to the NOOK app. Like the Kindle app, you can browse an extensive library of titles, genres, and more right from your smartphone.
After you find a new book that you feel comfortable with, you can customize various aspects of the reading experience. This includes adjusting the font style, changing the margins, and even changing the page animations. As you’d expect, you can also take notes and add bookmarks that you can then share with your friends when you come across an inspirational quote or just something funny. The NOOK app is free to use and includes more than 75,000 free e-books. Alternatively, you can start building your digital library by purchasing e-books.
Goodreads
Goodreads is not an app for reading your favorite e-books. Instead, it is a social community for anyone who enjoys reading and sharing book recommendations and reviews. Sometimes it’s not always possible for you to talk to your friends and family about what new books they like. This is where Goodreads comes into play because this app makes it easy to see what your friends are reading and what they think of those books. It’s an excellent place to find something new to read – something I, as a decades-long user, can vouch for.
You can create lists however you like, including books you want to pick up later. You can also find recommendations based on your reading lists and reader reviews. Then there are exciting challenges that you can set yourself, master and share with your community. Goodreads is an essential app for any dedicated reader.