Best android ebook readers

Ebooks became almost as popular as traditional paper books thanks to the devices created to read these files and provide the best experience. First there were the e-ink ebook readers which let their users read books on screens of convenient size, adjust fonts and indents and organize many hundreds of book files saved on one light device. Later they got a really strong rival in tablets and smartphones, especially the Android-based ones with their great variety of models and sizes.

Here we are going to consider the most popular free ebook readers for Android, as this OS takes the major share in the world market of the mobile OS.

In comparison with an e-ink reader, a smartphone or a tablet has two great advantages:

More options for customization due to the screen capacity of the smartphone/tablet.
A possibility to perform all tasks with one device. Even the best e-ink reader is an additional device designed for reading only, while we all can keep everything on one smartphone.

No wonder that even the king of e-ink readers Amazon Kindle now offers an alternative to it — a reading app for a tablet and smartphone.

Also, one of the best things about reading apps is their price: there are free Android ebook readers with decent functionality, and the price of the paid ones is really small in comparison with a separate e-ink reader.

Current universal readers for ebooks, both free and paid, should have a certain set of the default features, like configuring the page appearance, bookmarks and notes, page scrolling, etc., and they do offer these features. So, other criteria might be important to define the best ebook reader for Android smartphone or tablet.

Let’s have a look at the most popular applications designed for the Android-based mobile devices.

FullReader

Supported formats: FB2, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, DJVU, DJV, TXT, DOC/DOCX, RTF, CBR, CBZ, HTML/HTM, XPS, OXPS, ODT, RAR, ZIP, 7Z, MP3

FullReader is perhaps the best customizable free reader app for Android mobile OS on the market. It is able to open and read almost all ebooks and documents and does not require installing any other utilities.

The free reader has a plain intuitive interface and lots of configuration options for adjusting the page appearance, text reflow in EPUB and PDF, sharing the books and pages, custom covers, user’s ebook collections, file manager, etc.

More features of FullReader for Android:

Audiobooks support
Text to speech (languages, voices, speed and pitch can be chosen for each separate ebook)
Cloud storages (Google Drive, OneDrive, DropBox)
OPDS directories
Translation for 95 languages (the app won’t require installing additional dictionaries on a smartphone or tablet)
Customizable toolbar in the ebook page window with quick access to the most needed options
Unpacking of ZIP, RAR and 7z archives
Notifying about the prolonged reading
Shortcuts for separate books on the Home screen of the device
Widgets for favorites and recent books on the Home screen.

Cool Reader

Supported formats: EPUB, FB2, MOBI, DOC, RTF, TXT, HTML, CHM, TCR, PDB, PML, PRC

Cool Reader is the oldest and best-known ebook reader for an Android tablet and smartphone. The retro interface now looks slightly awkward, but the application is a convenient and functional tool for reading ebooks and documents on Android devices. The license is free and does not include ads, though users can support the developers by donating.

This free app offers flexible customization of the page look, auto scrolling, bookmarks and notes, text search, day and night themes.

FBReader

Supported formats: EPUB, FB2, AZW3, RTF, DOC, TXT, HTML

FBReader is a software with the functionality of the free version somehow limited in comparison with some other Android ebook readers. However, its set of options can be increased with additional plugins (there are add-ons for more formats — PDF and DjVu viewer, CBR and CBZ viewer, a separate text-to-speech plugin, etc.).

In its simple form without such enhancements this ebook reader meets all the main requirements to the page look adjustment (including the night mode), manual and auto scrolling, bookmarks.

More features of FBReader for Android:

Synchronization between different devices
Several popular network libraries supported by default
Custom OPDS catalogs.
Own library with a great choice of free and paid books
Reading fb2 format from zip archives
Dictionaries for ebook contents translation
Text to speech (absent in a free version)
Bookshelf file manager (a separate add-on).

Librera

Supported formats: FB2 (including zipped), EPUB, EPUB3, MOBI, DJVU, PDF, AZW, AZW3, TXT, RTF, ODT, HTML, MHT, XPS, CBZ, CBR, TIFF, PDB

Librera is an Android ebook reader with the best functionality of the free version, but its main disadvantage is that too many ads are shown in it, even in the book reading window.

The free license of this ebook reader offers a wide choice of fonts and backgrounds, light and black themes for day and night. All settings are configured in one side menu. The interface of this Android application is customizable with the option to define which elements should be shown there.

More features of Librera for Android ebook reader:

Text to speech (uses the built-in TTS engines)
File manager
Leaving comments (for PDF ebook files)
OPDS network libraries.
Third-party dictionaries and online search for translation
Widgets for favorites and recent ebooks

AI Reader

Supported formats: EPUB, FB2, FB3, FBZ, MOBI, TXT, HTML, RTF, DOC, DOCX, ODT, PRC, TCR, ZIP, GZ

AI Reader is a popular free software for Android mobile OS compatible with both the modern and old smartphones and tablets. One setup side menu includes sub menus for each category configuration.

The free edition of this ebook reader has all the best options required from an Android reading app: Library with book categories and sorting, appearance customization, page scrolling, bookmarks, notes, text search, etc.

Pocket Book

Supported formats: FB2, FB2.zip, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, DjVu, CBZ, CBR, CBT, DOCX, RTF, TXT, CHM, HTML (basic)

Pocket Book reader is a free, simple and easy-to-operate Android application. One of the best features of this reader is a graphic pie menu launched from the book page window. All text formatting tasks and additional adjustments can be performed with that menu, though it takes some time to master it — all options are marked by pictograms with no text.

More options of Moon+ ebook reader for Android:

Cloud storages (DropBox, Google Drive)
Synchronization between several tablets and phones
Three established network libraries are supported by default (Feedbooks, WebNovel, Project Gutenberg)
Custom OPDS directories
Book contents translation (uses dictionaries installed on the device)
Reminder about the prolonged reading
Voice aloud (absent in the free edition)
Widgets and shortcuts for books on the Home screen of the smartphone or tablet (absent in the free edition).

eReader Prestigio

Supported formats: EPUB, EPUB3, FB2, FB2.ZIP, MOBI, PDF, DJVU, TXT, HTML

eReader Prestigio is a free Android app for reading ebooks created by the developers of the Prestigio tablets. The interface of this reader is aesthetic with a smart Bookshelf and a very convenient side menu, however, the best advantage is the direct access from the application to its own bookstore and library with thousands of titles.

Customization settings are rather limited in comparison with other Android ebook readers: 5 themes are offered for the Bookshelf, 3 backgrounds (light, dark, sepia) and 6 fonts are provided for the texts. Users can configure the font size and indents. There is a black theme for using this app at night.

More options of eReader Prestigio for Android:

A separate network library and a bookstore
Audiobooks
Different types of text encoding support
Reading ebook aloud (language and voice can be set for each book separately, no matter what the system language of the mobile device is)
Custom ebook collections
Synchronization between different devices (user account is required)
Cloud storages (DropBox, OneDrive, Google Drive).

Bookari

Supported formats: EPUB and PDF

Bookari reader for Android is a known free application for mobile phones and tablets which can read even DRM protected ebooks. The side menu of the reader is minimal, and the free edition includes lots of ads.

The page appearance settings are limited to 4 themes, changeable font sizes and light and night modes.

Aldiko

Supported formats: EPUB and PDF

Aldiko reader is a good choice if one needs to read ebooks in EPUB or PDF format on an Android mobile phone or a tablet (these are the most common formats of ebooks and textbooks). The interface of the free edition of the ebook reader is simple and inspired by Google apps on setup. The reader provides the best formatting options for text and sorting options for the library items. The black theme for the night mode is available.

Best android ebook readers