E-readers are a great tool. For those who love the written word, the possibility of having over 1000 titles at your fingertips without ever leaving the comfort of your own couch, is enticing.

 

What to buy? Many companies produce electronic readers, but if you feel like you’d rather go with quality over buying one on the cheap from a brand you’ve never heard of, read on.

Here are 5 of the best e-readers available. These are the top rated reading devices around as evaluated by the general public, CNET, Lifehacker, Digitaltrends.com and PC Mag.

Check it out- great for both personal use and for gift-giving:

1) Amazon Kindle Paperwhite



  PC Mag.com has rated the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite as the best ereader out there, overall. Add to that the fact that a survey of the general public conducted on Lifehacker.com also came up with this device as a winner, and you can consider this one a good bet.

The Kindle Paperwhite is not going to cost you multiple hundreds of dollars, it can store a lot of data as it relies on Cloud-based storage and the crisp, bright display makes using it a pleasure- all pluses.

It also comes with easy access to Amazon’s overwhelming ebook store, as well as the chance to subscribe to magazines and newspapers.

Amazon Prime users also get the opportunity to borrow books for free from over 350,000 titles.

File formats that are supported by the Kindle Paperwhite include:
  • Kindle Format 8 (AZW3)
  • Kindle (AZW)
  • TXT
  • PDF
  • unprotected MOBI
  • PRC
  • HTML
  • DOC
  • DOCX
  • JPEG
  • GIF
  • PNG
  • BMP

2) Amazon Kindle Oasis



Top rated on CNET.com, the Amazon Kindle Oasis is the lightest, thinnest Kindle around.

It’s also Amazon’s most expensive ereader, to date. But what do you get for the extra money you pay? Some critics say not much more than with other ereaders, but this one does have 60 percent more LEDs than older Kindles in the side of the display, resulting in a brighter read.

It also comes with a charging case, a battery that can last for months, a dedicated ‘page turn’ side button and the same Amazon reading perks as listed above with the Paperwhite.

The same file formats are also supported by the Kindle Oasis as by the Paperwhite.

3) Kobo Aura One



  Digitaltrends.com feels that this device is better than a Kindle, when it comes to electronic readers.

Here’s why: it’s one of the largest ereaders out there, but not so big that it can’t be counted as slim and lightweight.

And even though it’s bigger, it has the same 300-pixel-per-inch resolution as the priciest Kindles.

It’s also waterproof. Yes, you can take this one swimming with you up to 6 feet under for an hour, without a worry. Time to read to the fishes.

On the down side, Kobo Aura One users don’t get the advantages of easy access to Amazon’s ebook collection, the largest of its kind in the world. That being said, Kobo’s ebook store has more than 5 million titles itself, so it’s not as though you'll be lacking reading material.

If you have a library card, you can borrow ebooks easily, as well, with the Kobo Aura One.

Kobo’s parent company, Rakuten owns Overdrive, the most used system by libraries lending ebooks, and so Overdrive is built into the Kobo Aura One.

Supported file formats include:
  • EPUB3
  • EPUB
  • PDF
  • MOBI
  • JPEG
  • GIF
  • PNG
  • BMP
  • TIFF
  • TXT
  • HTML
  • RTF
  • CBZ
  • CBR

4) Amazon Kindle Voyage



Amazon’s Kindle Voyage is slightly heavier and thicker than the Oasis, but still easy to handle.

As the Oasis does, it comes with Wi-Fi or W-Fi plus free 3G options. It also has a battery that can last for weeks, and the PagePress feature, which uses sensors to allow the reader to turn the page by placing their thumb on the frame of the device.

This ereader supports the same formats as other Kindles.

5) Barnes and Noble Nook GlowLight Plus



The Nook GlowLight Plus is an improvement on previous Nook ereaders. It’s waterproof as well as dust proof, and it also comes without any ads, unlike other ereaders, such as the Kindle Paperwhite.

Another difference is that the back of this ereader is made of aluminum, in contrast to the plastic casing available on many other devices.

According to Barnes and Noble, the screen in this device, which is a responsive capacitive touchscreen, is on par with the screen on the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite.

File formats supported by the Nook GlowLight Plus include:
  • EPUB
  • PDF
  • Adobe DRM ePub and PDF
  • JPG
  • GIF
  • PNG
  • BMP

In summary:

There are many good ereaders out there, and you likely do not have to purchase the most expensive to have a positive experience reading ebooks.

Already know what you’re going to get? Now to decide on the best case…