If you’ve been considering making the jump from physical books to e-books, you’ll need to figure out the best e-book apps for Android. As amazing as traditional books are, they’re often heavy, expensive, and can take up a significant amount of space in a cramped apartment, so making the transition to e-books is worth it.
The good thing is that you’ve got a few options, depending on where you want to get your e-books and how you want them to look on your Android phone or tablet’s screen.
With that said, take a peek at our picks for the best e-book apps for reading on Android!
Amazon Kindle
Amazon Kindle pulls ahead of the pack with a huge library of content, including free e-books and content from indie publishers that you can read on your mobile device or desktop with the Kindle app. There is bound to be a book out there for you, no matter what genre you are looking for.
In the app, you can also customize fonts, margins, line spacing, and also organize the books you’ve downloaded into collections so that it’s easier to find the one you want to read. Kindle will also remember the page that you left reading on when you switch devices. This means that you can switch between your phone, tablet, and PC without ever losing your page in the process. Or you can simply get something like the newest Amazon Kindle Scribe, which is one of the best Amazon Kindle e-readers, and go back and forth between it and your smartphone.
The Kindle app is so versatile that you can even have other reading pieces sent to the app, such as articles saved in Instapaper. You can also sign up for the Kindle Unlimited and get access to more than one million titles for $11.99 per month.
Moon+ Reader
While the ability to purchase books from a major retailer and download them all to your phone is awesome, sometimes the books you want to read are ones that you already have in digital form. Whether you’ve picked up e-books from an independent publisher, or you’ve gotten the files from a now-defunct program, being able to open and read them properly is key, and that’s where Moon+ Reader comes in.
This app is lightweight, easy to use, and very straightforward. I personally prefer this over the Kindle app on my Android devices. It has support for more than 10 different file formats, from RAR all the way to EPUB. On top of that, you can customize the way words look on the screen, back up your library online, and get access to five auto-scroll options apart from plenty of fantastic features. With the ability to view content in various formats, it’s easy to understand why Moon+ Reader is one of the best Android apps, and not just among the best e-book apps for Android.
Libby
Long gone are the days when you needed to head out to your local library just to get some new books to read. Thanks to the digital world and apps like Libby, your library is now available with you wherever you go.
If you live near a participating library, Libby opens up your world to a variety of new books at your fingertips. There are standard books that can be “checked out” easily along with audiobooks, and both of these 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 simple to check out a book, and then easily send it over to a reading device. The app has all the expected options for customization, so you can read right from the app and even take notes. Did you just come across a word you’ve never seen before? Libby will be able to even define it for you from the app, making it 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 range of books, some of which are free. You’ll also find some textbooks, although we’d like to see the textbook selection improve. You can read books offline, use a dictionary to look up unfamiliar words, and have your notes and place in a book saved across multiple devices through your Google account.
If you have a family account set up, then you can share books between everybody without having to purchase them multiple times. Staying within the Google ecosystem also makes it easy to share your purchases with family members and keep all of your media in one place.
Kobo
Kobo has been around for quite some time and is now a part of Rakuten, but that hasn’t stopped it from being great. This app is a great way of reading your favorite e-books whether they’re on your phone or tablet. It has a gigantic selection filled with both new and established authors, including magazines and children’s books. The most popular and trending e-books are even updated hourly so you won’t miss an amazing story, even when it’s coming from an author you’ve never heard of.
As you begin to buy books and Kobo learns your preferences, it will build up a list of recommendations having suggestions for new books or magazines. There is also an awesome reading activity feature that’ll show you how much time you’ve spent while reading in the app, what books you are currently reading, a running tally of how many books you’ve read, and even how many pages you’ve turned in the process.
PocketBook
PocketBook is another one of those apps that make it easy to read books, regardless of what format they’re in. The app supports more than 25 different formats, making it possible for you to read magazines and comic books, or even listen to your favorite audiobooks.
The biggest benefit to PocketBook over similar apps has everything to do with cloud syncing. PocketBook Cloud will synchronize your progress for anything uploaded to the app, so you can start reading something on your phone, only to pick it 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.
NOOK
While Amazon has always been an online-only store, Barnes & Noble has been one of the largest bookstores still hanging around. To try and keep up with the times, the company unveiled a series of e-readers a few years back. Following that unsuccessful attempt, Barnes & Noble has now largely pivoted to the NOOK app. Like the Kindle app, you can browse a vast library of titles, genres, and much more right from your smartphone.
After finding a new book to settle down with, you can customize different aspects of the reading experience. This includes adjusting the font style, changing the margins, and even switching up the page animations. As you might expect, you can also make notes and add bookmarks that can then be shared with your friends if you come across an inspiring quote or just something funny. The NOOK app is free to use and includes more than 75,000 free e-books, or you can start building your digital library by purchasing e-books.
Goodreads
Goodreads isn’t an app to read your favorite e-books. Instead, it’s a social community for everyone who enjoys reading and sharing book recommendations and ratings. Sometimes it’s not always feasible for you to be able to catch up with your friends and family about what new books they are enjoying. That’s where Goodreads comes into the foray, as this app makes it easy to see what your friends are reading and what they think of those books. It is an excellent place to find something new to read — something I can vouch for as a decade-old user.
You can create lists however you like, including books that you want to pick up later. You can also find recommendations based on your reading lists and read reviews. Then there are exciting challenges that you can set for yourself to achieve and share them with your community. Goodreads is a must-have app for every dedicated reader.