Good e-Reader has been reviewing e-readers and e-notebooks since the first Amazon Kindle was released in 2008. Most other tech blogs release their top lists earlier in the year. Since so many new devices are released throughout the year, we wait until the end of the year, when everything is already out, to release our Best e-Readers and E-Notebooks of 2024 list.
Plenty of excellent devices are on the market, and unlike most other tech sites, our list doesn’t include only Amazon Kindle and Kobo e-readers. We gather information from reviewing the devices, identifying what features stand out and what is worth your money. There is more choice than ever.
Are you looking to buy a new e-book reader or e-note? The Good e-Reader Bestseller List will be your definitive source of information, making it a perfect buyer’s guide.
The e-reader is the typical book reader geared towards reading e-books, manga and other digital content. A copious amount of new devices have hit the market throughout the year, and we only look at hardware that came out in 2024 and not older devices. Stuff that came out in 2023 is still good by today’s standards, but going into 2025, it tends to look dated.
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition
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 in October, their first 12th-generation device. The big selling point is the new E INK screen, 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 has an ambient light sensor, fast charging, and comes in new colours, which makes the new lineup distinctive.
The Kindle Paperwhite 12th generation features a 7-inch E INK Carta 1300 e-paper display with a resolution of 1264×1680 with 300 PPI. The new e-paper display uses an oxide thin-film transistor that gives it the highest contrast ratio of any Kindle, so text and images pop on the screen. The device is 25% faster when scrolling through a library or zooming through pages. If you like to read at night, the front-light system has undergone a revision and now has 10 White LEDs and 9 Amber LEDs. If you buy the Signature Edition of this model, it comes with an ambient light sensor that will automatically adjust the brightness of the lights based on your environment. This is similar to the iPhone with its auto brightness. On max brightness, you should get around 24 nits.
The Kindle Paperwhite runs a Mediatek dual-core 1GHZ processor; the previous Paperwhite only had a single-core processor. Peter and I noticed that this is the fastest Kindle that Amazon has ever made. It has 512MB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. The Signature Edition has 32GB of storage. For those who like to read in the bathtub, it is rated IPX8 so that it can be submerged in freshwater for up to 60 minutes. If you have it in salt water, washing it underneath fresh water, such as a tap, is essential. It has Bluetooth 5.1 for listening to Audible audiobooks via wireless headphones or earbuds.
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.
Underneath the hood is an Octa-core processor, 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. If there is insufficient space to store your books, apps, and audiobooks, an SD card can store an additional 1TB. You can listen to or stream your favourite audiobooks, music or podcasts with the dual speakers or pair your wireless headphones or speakers via Bluetooth 5.1. Dual microphones ensure you can speak to your friends using voice communication apps. If you like to take pictures, there is a 16MP Rear Camera with LED Flash. This device also has WIFI and a USB-C port for transferring data or charging. A respectable 3,950mAh Li-ion Polymer battery powers it. The dimensions are 159 x 80 x 8.0 mm (6.3″ x 3.1″ x 0.31″) and weighs 170 g (6 oz).
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.
The Verse Pro Colour features a 6-inch E INK Kaleido 3 colour e-paper display with a black-and-white resolution of 1448×1072 and 300 PPI and a colour resolution of 536×724 and 150 PPI. It delivers stunning clarity and detail. Reproducing 4096 colours and shades, PocketBook Verse Pro Color provides an eye-safe, glare-free, and comfortable e-reading experience.
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? In addition to the Carta 1300 screen, it has a sunken screen without glass protecting it. This ensures no glare when reading outside in direct sunlight; the same goes for overhead bright lights. I have always liked this type of e-reader design because fonts and text on the screen look better at 300 PPI when reading. Text pops better, and glass tends to defuse text. Suffice it to say that the Clara BW is one of the best e-readers around.
The Rakuten Kobo Clara BW features a 6-inch E INK Carta 1300 e-paper panel that is 25% more responsive than the previous generation Kobo Clara 2e. The resolution is 1448 x 1072, and the system is in comprehensive Dark Mode and 300 PPI. The screen is recessed and does not have glass. Text will pop due to the exposed e-paper screen being closer to your eyes. The e-reader only comes in one colour: black. The ComfortLight PRO adjustable brightness system will give you both white and amber LED lights to read during the night. I have often found that the white lights at 35% and amber at 7% tend to make the screen very white, similar to the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite.
Underneath the hood is a MediaTek processor MT8113L – ARM A53 @1GHz, 512MB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. In the past, Kobo relied on storage on SD cards; this e-reader uses EEMC storage soldered onto the circuit board. You can buy audiobooks and ebooks from Kobo. Listen to them via Bluetooth 5.0 and pair earbuds, headphones or an external speaker. You can also use the internet browser to visit websites. Pocket integration can save articles to your Kobo, and it is also compatible with thousands of libraries to browse, borrow, and read via Overdrive. Connect all these services WiFi 802.11 ac/b/g/n (i.e. dual-band, 2.4 and 5 GHz).
Digital Note Books have only really matured in the past four years. Plenty of new hardware came out this year, from major brands to companies you might not have heard of before. Everything on this list was rigorously tested to be worth your money.
Amazon Kindle Scribe 2
The Amazon Kindle Scribe 2 is now available in major markets like Canada and the United States. The second-generation model has a redesigned flush-front display with uniform white borders and an upgraded Premium Pen, which feels like writing on paper. However, the software experience is the same as that of the first-generation Kindle Scribe.
The Kindle Scribe is Amazon’s first digital note-taking product. Its stylus allows users to freehand draw, take notes inside e-books, and use AI features to improve their writing. The Scribe has the largest screen of any current Kindle, making it perfect for people who want to skip the drawing experience and read a book.
The Kindle Scribe 2 features a 10.2-inch e-paper display with a resolution of 1860×2480 with 300 PPI. There is a redesigned flush-front display with uniform white borders. It has a series of white and amber LED lights that can be adjusted automatically. There are some changes underneath the hood. The first-generation Scribe had a single-core 1GHz processor, whereas the Scribe 2 has a 2 GHz dual-core, 1 GB of RAM and 16.0GB, 32GB or 64GB of internal storage. It has WIFI to download e-books from the Amazon Store. Bluetooth 5.1 is available in select markets to wirelessly connect earphones or an external speaker to listen to audiobooks. USB-C is used to charge the device, but the battery size is unknown. The dimensions are 196 x 230 x 5.8mm and weighs 433g.
There are a few software features found on the Scribe 2. The new built-in AI-powered notebook lets you quickly summarize pages and notes into concise bullet points in a handwritten-style font that can be shared from the notebook tab. You can also refine your notes in a handwritten-style font so they’re legible while maintaining the look and feel of handwriting. This feature is currently only available in English.
With Active Canvas, you can write your thoughts directly into the book when inspiration strikes. Your note becomes part of the page, and the book’s text dynamically flows around it—whether you increase the font size, change the font style, or change the book layout, the note stays visible exactly where you want it, so you never lose any meaning or context. You’ll also be able to write your notes in the side panel and easily hide them when you’re done.
Remarkable Paper Pro
ReMarkable has finally announced new hardware, and they are now leading the charge for what a writing slate can do. The company announced the reMarkable Paper Pro with a Color Canvas 3.0 e-paper display. Thanks to the new front-lit display, working during the day or night makes staying productive easier. Why did they use to incorporate these features? Remarkable has been listening to users who wanted a lighting system and a colour display to view colour PDF files and also freehand draw, take notes and edit documents. The best-selling feature? It is using E INK Gallery 3!
The reMarable Paper Pro features an 11.8-inch e-paper display with Canvas Color 3.0, based on E INK Gallery 3 and employs electrophoretic technology. The white and white colour content resolution is 2160 x 1620 with 229 PPI. Other paper tablets put a filter on a black-and-white display to produce colours. On reMarkable Paper Pro, coloured ink particles inside the display move around to render what users write and read. The natural colours evoke the feeling of a printed newspaper page. Compared to LCDs or LED screens on laptops and smartphones, the Canvas Color display doesn’t use bright, flickering lights to produce colours. The low-glare display reflects natural light for a more comfortable reading experience. In dim lighting conditions, a new adjustable reading light softly illuminates the display, making it possible to read and work for hours without eye strain.
Remarkable is the second company to use Gallery 3 on a commercial product. However, reMarkable is the largest and has the potential to go truly mainstream. How did the company manage to make Gallery 3 work? reMarkable told me in a written statement, “In the Gallery 3 platform, E Ink gave us the right ingredients for making a unique colour display. Using that display paper technology as a foundation, our teams have redesigned every part of reMarkable’s signature paper-like writing experience, from the Marker tip to the textured display surface to how reMarkable OS, our custom operating system, behaves. The result is the Canvas Color display, a custom display stack that delivers an even better writing experience than reMarkable 2. Out of the box, Gallery 3 promises “an update time of 30 ms.” On reMarkable 2, it’s 21 ms. On reMarkable Paper Pro, it’s as low as 12 ms.”
Underneath the hood is a 1.8 GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, 2 GB LPDDR4 RAM, and 64GB of internal storage. The device has a USB-C port for charging and transferring documents. Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz are available, primarily for accessing cloud services and fetching firmware updates. It is powered by a giant 5,030 mAh battery. The dimensions are 274.1 x 196.6 x 5.1 mm (10.8 x 7.8 x 0.24 inches) and approximately 525 g (1.16 lb).
Viwoods AI Notebook
The paper has a 10.65-inch latest E Ink Carta 1300 display. The Aipaper also uses a more resilient, flexible e-paper display than the rigid glass screen. It has 4 GB RAM and 128 GB of storage. Keeping the lights on is a large capacity battery, allowing a standby time of 3 to 4 weeks.
The build quality is top-notch. It looks nice and refreshingly new, a stark contrast to the run-of-the-mill e-note devices that have already started to look dull. While the grayish shade might remind us of the Remarkable 2, the similarity ends there. The Aipaper stands out with its rich feature set, and at just 4.5mm, it is also the thinnest e-note around.
The look immediately catches attention, accentuated by the thin bezels on all sides except the relatively thick chin. Almost all e-note devices do not have left ledgers. Instead, the thick lower bezel houses the Home, Back, and AI buttons. The presence of soft-touch buttons makes things look all the more classy.
Simplicity happens to be one of the cornerstones of the Aipaper design theme. This also makes it look clean and fresh, with none of the pretension evident on many a competing device. Instead, the device seems more focused on delivering superior performance and features than anything else. You will only have the Power and fingerprint sensor button combo at the top, while the USB-C port, status indicator light, wireless antenna, and a pair of mics are at the bottom. The company said the mics are only meant for voice input for AI interaction. Nothing is on the right, while the left snaps into the magnetic case.
Rakuten Kobo Libra Colour
The Rakuten Kobo Libra Colour is likely one of the best e-readers and e-notebooks on the market. It utilizes the latest generation E INK Kaleido 3 e-paper technology, which makes the screen vibrant. This new device has several major selling points: It has a 35% larger battery than the previous generation, Libra 2; it has physical page-turn buttons, Google Drive and Dropbox to access cloud storage, and the capability to use the Kobo Pencil 2 to highlight and write notes in ebooks.
The Kobo Libra Colour features a 7-inch E INK Kaleido 3 colour e-paper display with a black and white resolution of 1264×1680 with 300 PPI. The colour panel’s resolution is 150 PPI. There are two colours of the Libra to purchase: black and white. There are manual page-turn buttons, which help use the device one-handed to turn pages rapidly; you can also elect to use the capacitive touchscreen display to do it, pinch, and zoom. Read during the day or night, thanks to the ComfortLight PRO adjustable brightness and colour temperature for blue light reduction. You control the screen’s luminosity with two slider bars at the top UI.
One of the big draws behind the Libra Colour is that it comes in two different colours: black and white. Most online retailers have these two in stock; I would likely prefer the black one since the e-paper screen contrasts better with a black piano body. Some people like the white colour to stand out in the crowd or just because they dig white bodies, and that is fine, too.
Underneath the hood is a MediaTek MT8113T – dual-core ARM A53 @ 2.0 GHz processor, 1GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. The Libra Colour does not use an SD card for storage. Instead, it uses EEMC; Kobo told me this is faster. Although the Libra Colour can’t swim, it is certified IPX8 for up to 60 minutes in 2 meters of water. There is a USB-C port for charging and transferring data and wifi to connect to the internet. You can use the Kobo browser to visit your favourite websites or Overdrive to borrow colour content from your local library. Internet connectivity is due to the onboard WiFi 802.11 ac/b/g/n (i.e. dual-band, 2.4 and 5 GHz). Bluetooth 5.0 can be used to listen to audiobooks purchased from Kobo. It is powered by a 2050 mAh battery, and the dimensions are 144.6 x 161 x 8.3 mm and weighs 199.5 grams.
In addition, for every reader who is also a journaler, in-the-margins note-taker, or page-decorating BookTok’er, Kobo Libra Colour is also Kobo’s most affordable stylus-enabled e-reader with the addition of a Kobo Stylus 2 (sold separately), with colour handwriting, highlighting, and notebooks. Building on the success of Kobo Sage and Kobo Elipsa 2E handwriting experiences, the new Kobo Libra Colour brings stylus-based writing and Kobo’s patented write-anywhere ebook annotations to their popular 7” format. The Kobo Libra Color will only have eight colours in the note-taking app.
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.
