The Best e-readers for Winter 2024 and 2025
This year, over one hundred e-readers and e-notebooks were released worldwide, and it can be daunting to figure out what e-book reader might be suitable for your needs. Whether you want to curl up and read a book under a blanket on a cold winter day or read while waiting for an appointment and during the daily commute, Good E-reader has reviewed almost every device on the market.
Our Best e-reader list for Winter 2024 and 2025 primarily considers English-language e-readers that cater to the North American and Western European markets, including Australia. We do not recommend that e-readers only be sold in specific regions or countries, such as Tolino, iFlytek, Hanvon, iReader, or Hyread.
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 12th Generation
The Amazon Kindle Paperwhite is the world’s most popular e-reader, and the previous generation model had the most sales and reviews on the Amazon website. The e-commerce giant refreshed the Kindle Paperwhite a week ago, and it is considered their first 12th-generation device. The big selling point is the new E INK screen, which is the closest you can get to reading a physical book. There is a 25% increase in performance, which primarily applies to page-turn speed, and it has a larger screen to fit more text. It also comes in new colours, which makes the new lineup distinctive.
Rakuten Kobo Clara BW
The Kobo Colour e-readers might be capturing all of the headlines on major news publications and tech review sites and with good reason. The Kobo Libra Colour and Clara Colour are the first colour e-readers released by a major company. However, the Kobo BW is likely the best black-and-white e-reader in the Kobos catalogue; it destroys the previous generation Clara and trounces the entry-level e-reader, the Nia.
What are the major selling points behind the Clara BW? Aside from the Carta 1300 screen, it has a hollow bezel and no glass. This ensures no glare when reading outside in direct sunlight—Ditto with overhead bright lights. I have always liked this type of e-reader design since fonts and text on the screen look better at 300 PPI when reading. Text pops better; glass tends to defuse text. Suffice it to say that the Clara BW is one of the best e-readers around.
Onyx Boox Palma 2
Onyx Boox announced the Palma 2 e-reader, which went on pre-order two weeks ago and is shipping out on November 26th. This dedicated book reader has the form factor of a smartphone, so it easily fits in your pocket. It comes in two different colours: black and white. It retails for USD 279.99, which is a bit on the expensive side. This device’s big selling points are the small screen, Google Android 13 OS, and Google Play.
The Onyx Boox Palma 2 features a 6.13″ HD Carta 1200 glass screen with a flat cover lens. The resolution is 824×1648, ensuring all your books have razor-sharp fonts. It has a flush screen, a sleek bezel design, and excellent warm lighting. A light sensor automatically adjusts the brightness depending on your environment. There is also a G-Sensor for automatic screen rotation, which is fantastic for reading in portrait or landscape mode.
Pocketbook Verse Pro Color
The Pocketbook Verse Pro Color is a new e-reader that has only been available to purchase for the past few weeks. The industrial design and software experience are identical to the Pocketbook Verse Pro black and white model, except the Verse Pro Color has an E INK Kaleido 3 e-paper display. This is perfect for viewing ebook cover art, PDF files, comics, and magazines. The big selling points are the physical page-turn buttons, IPX8 water protection, audiobook support with Bluetooth, Text-to-Speech function, adaptive SMARTlight feature, and Quad-Core processor.
Bigme Pocketbook Note Color 2
The Bigme Pocketnote Color 2 is an excellent dedicated e-book reader. The E INK Kaleido 3-color e-paper display makes comics, magazines, and apps shine. It has limited note-taking functionality, mainly due to it not having a WACOM screen. Instead, the stylus that comes with the unit is capacitive. The drawing experience differs from that of dedicated e-notebooks from Bigme, but it is acceptable. One of the big selling points is the inclusion of Google Android 11, which has full access to all of the Google Play Services and the Google Play Store. The price is excellent, considering all the value you are getting; it costs $299.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
