The Best Non-Kindle E-readers You Can Buy Right Now
If you love the digital book experience, but don't love Amazon.
If you're looking for a great e-reader but don't want to buy into the Amazon Kindle ecosystem, you've got a few good options. Sure, there are some off-the-wall brands out there that you can pick up, but if you truly want to get the best non-Kindle e-reader, you're going to find three brands that really fit the bill and offer a ton of compatibility.
Kobo
Perhaps one of the best and most well-known Kindle alternatives is Kobo. Part of the Rakuten ecosystem, Kobo e-readers feature a lot of the same design schemes as the Amazon Kindles, making them a perfect alternative for users who like the way Kindle's look and work but want something that isn't tied to Amazon.
The Kobo Libra 2, more specifically, fits all the same bills as a Kindle, and it offers support for a slew of different document types, including EPUB, EPUB2, EPUB3, PDF, FlePub, MOBI, PDF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF, CBZ, and CBR.
The Kobo Libra 2 has a seven-inch display CARTA 1200 e-ink display, 32GB of storage, and access to Rakuten's massive Kobo ebook store. It isn't as hefty of an offering as Amazon's Kindle Store, but it has most of the big-name books you can expect to find in an e-book store. And, since the Kobo Libra 2 offers tons of compatibility with multiple format types, you can read just about anything on the device by sideloading it.
The Kobo Libra 2 retails for $189.99, putting it on par with the Kindle Paperwhite. Oh, and did I mention it also comes with page-turn buttons?
Boox
Another popular name that tends to fly under the radar when you're talking e-readers with Kindle fans is Boox. While a bit more expensive than your average Kindle, Boox offers a ton of compatibility for different formats, and most of the offerings the company has are for larger displays. The Boox Note Air3 C, for example, offers a 10.3-inch display that can feature color as well as black and white imagery.
The Boox Note Air3 C sports a massive amount of compatibility, including support for formats like PDF(Max 2GB), DJVU, CBR, CBZ, EPUB, AZW3, MOBI, TXT, DOCX, DOC, FB2, CHM, RTF, HTML, ZIP, PRC, PPTX, PNG, JPG, and BMP. It's also an Android-based tablet, which means you can take advantage of multiple types of reading apps to gain access to tons of books, comics, and more.
It's also great for taking notes, as the larger display gives you plenty of room to work off the screen. If you're looking for an e-reader that can also double as a tablet in a lot of ways, then the Boox Note Air3 C is a great option. It typically retails for $499.99, making it one of the more expensive options out there.
PocketBook
The final brand I want to highlight here, and another one that I find especially promising, is PocketBook. The PocketBook Verse ($129) is one of the closest options the company offers to the Kindle, and it features a six-inch glare-free E-Ink Carta display. What's even more enticing about the PocketBook is that it offers an expandable SD card slot, allowing you to upgrade the storage from the internal 8GB memory with an SD card up to 128 GB.
The PocketBook Verse also comes with support for 25 formats, including ACSM, CHM, DJVU, DOC, DOCX, EPUB, EPUB(DRM), FB2, FB2.ZIP, HTM, HTML, MOBI, PDF, PDF (DRM), PRC, RTF, TXT, AZW, CBR, AZW3, and CBZ.
Why choose a non-Kindle e-reader?
Deciding to ditch Amazon can be a tough call, especially since Amazon offers the largest e-book store on the market. Sure, you could also go with another brand, like Nook, but if you're trying to avoid Kindle, then chances are you're also trying to avoid Nook, too. If that's the case, then going with one of the three brands we've listed above can give you a lot of access to great books while also setting you free from the clutches of Amazon's Kindle experience.
The downside to a lot of these non-Kindle e-readers, though, is that you'll be using much smaller online stores or you'll be side-loading books onto your device instead. That isn't all that difficult, however. If you want to abandon the Kindle ecosystem but don't want to fully forgo the ease-of-access the Kindle Store offers, then I highly suggest checking out Kobo. It's a solid brand with a great ebook store, and all of the company's e-readers are priced similarly to Kindles, so you won't be paying much more to make that break.