No Kindle Needed: 10 Free eBook Reader Apps for Your Phone or Tablet
You’ll find lots of ebooks online that you can buy or download for free, but if you don’t have a dedicated eReader, how can you read them? Fire up an ebook reader app on your phone or tablet. Whether you have Mobi, EPUB, or PDF files, there is an eReader app that will work for you. Read on for your best options.
Amazon Kindle
You don’t need a Kindle device to read Amazon books; the Kindle app supports a host of different devices, including Windows and Mac computers, as well as iOS, iPadOS, and Android mobile devices. While reading, you can easily: change the color, font, text size, line spacing, and other attributes; mark up and annotate text passages; use an X-ray feature to get more details on characters and other elements; bookmark your current page; and search for specific text.
If you need the definition of a certain word, highlight it and a dictionary or Wikipedia entry pops up to describe it. The Kindle app can handle books downloaded from Amazon as well as anything from your library via Libby.
Google Play Books
The Google Play Books app isn’t as powerful as the Kindle app, but it’s no slouch. Available for iPhone and iPad, Android devices, on the web, and the Chrome browser through a Chrome Extension, this app plays host to any books you grab from Google Play, as well as PDFs and other formats downloaded from third-party sites.
You can change the text and color attributes, view the book’s original pages, add a bookmark, and even hear the book read aloud. From the Settings screen, you can turn on dark mode, use an offline dictionary, and enlist the volume key to turn pages.
Apple Books
Designed for iOS and iPadOS, Apple Books is the built-in reader for ebooks and audiobooks downloaded from Apple’s bookstore. Within the app, you can adjust font type and size, theme, and brightness, as well as bookmark pages, annotate text, and make notes.
Turn on Scrolling View to scroll down to read the book instead of swiping left. Pressing down on a word gives you the option to copy it, look it up, highlight, make a note of it, search for it through the book, or share it with someone else. The Search feature takes you to a specific word or page number.
Barnes & Noble Nook
Designed to let you read books, magazines, and other content from Barnes & Noble, the Nook app is supported on Windows, iOS/iPadOS, and Android. In the app, you can change the font style and size, margins, line spacing, justification, and brightness. You can easily sail through the book’s pages via a handy slider bar at the bottom or jump to a specific page. Tapping and highlighting a word brings up a definition. A dedicated Settings pages lets you tweak the page turning options, manage your library, and control the reader itself.
Kobo Books
Aimed at both ebooks and audiobooks, the Kobo Books app is available for Windows, macOS, iOS/iPadOS, and Android. The app lets you read books downloaded from the Kobo store as well as imported books saved as PDFs or EPUBs.
Tap the screen, and a series of icons appears on the lower right. From here, you can play with the font style and size, layout, and theme. You can also opt to use the volume keys to turn each page, change the orientation, and tweak the page transition. Highlighting a word retrieves its definition or allows you to annotate it. You can also bookmark a page and view a list of chapter headings and other details.
Libby
Libby allows you to borrow ebooks from your local library. The app is free; all you need is a library card to borrow books. The app works for iOS, iPadOS, and Android devices, or you can use it directly through your web browser. After you sign in with your library card and account, you can browse or search for a book among the virtual stacks.
In the app itself, you can tweak the text size, the lighting, and the book’s design. The app allows you to bookmark and highlight specific pages and areas of the book. You can also search for text and swipe along the bottom to jump to a certain page. Pressing down on a word lets you view a definition, highlight it, or search for it within the book. If you don’t like Libby, you can send borrowed library books to the Kindle app instead.
FBReader
FBReader lets you read books downloaded from its own network library or those that you manually imported from other sources. The app supports a variety of formats, including PDF, ePub, mobi, RTF, HTML, and plain text. Versions of the app are available for iOS, iPadOS, and Android with a beta release for macOS and editions in active development for Windows and Linux.
When reading an ebook, you can easily switch between light and dark themes, search for text, change the orientation, and zoom in or out. From the Settings screen, you can adjust the text style and size, margins, appearance, color, and page turning. You can also enhance FBReader by installing and integrating different apps and plugins, such as an offline dictionary and a PDF reader.
The basic app is free, but a $5.99 premium flavor kicks in a text-to-speech reader, a translator, and built-in support for PDF and comic book formats.
KyBook
Designed for iOS and iPadOS, KyBook offers access to various book catalogs, including Project Gutenberg and Feedbooks. You can add additional online catalogs and incorporate books from folders saved on your device or among your cloud-based storage sites. The app supports a healthy array of formats, such as ePUB, PDF, mobi, text, and RTF.
In the app, you can change the font style and text as well as the color theme. You can search for text, listen to your book via text-to-speech, and set a timer to go off when you want to stop reading. Pressing down on a word lets you copy it, translate, define it, search for it, share it, mark it, or hear it read aloud. You can also view chapter headings, bookmarks, notes, and other items.
The basic version is free, while a premium subscription with Auto Scroll and more features runs $4.49 for three months or $14.99 for a full year.
FullReader
Geared for Android only, FullReader allows you to pull in a variety of different ebooks from your device or from the cloud. The app supports many different formats, including ePUB, PDF, mobi, txt, doc, docx, and HTML. You can scan for books stored on your device and then import the ones you want to read. For books stored in the cloud, you can connect to Google Drive, Dropbox, and Microsoft OneDrive, and download them to your device.
While you’re reading a book, you can tweak the font style and size, text color, background color, brightness, and theme. The advanced settings allow you to play with the layout, spacing, alignment, page turning, and other elements. You can view chapter headings and jump to a specific chapter. Pressing down on a word brings up a menu where you can highlight it, translate it, or share it. You can even make voice notes and hear the book read aloud to you.
PocketBook Reader
Aimed at iOS/iPadOS and Android devices, PocketBook Reader lets you grab books from its own store, those stored on your device, those saved in the cloud (Dropbox, Google Drive, and PocketBook Cloud), and those downloaded from Google Books. The app supports both ebooks and audiobooks in 26 different formats, such as ePUB, mobi, PDF, RTF, text, HTML, MP3, and M4B.
Tweaking the app is challenging at first. Press down on the screen, and a circle pops up with icons for different features but with no indication what each one does. Still, the app offers a range of settings. You can change the font style and size, brightness, colors, margins, reading mode, and other attributes. You can also bookmark pages, jump to a specific page, and hear the book read aloud. Pressing down on a word allows you to highlight it, search for it, or define it. Instead of dealing with the icons, you can jump directly to the Settings screen to tweak the app.
Originally published at https://www.pcmag.com.
