Here’s the Best Kindle for You, Based on Your Reading Preferences and Budget

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Think picking out a book is complicated? Try figuring out which Kindle model to read it on.

Today, Amazon sells six different e-readers that allow you to carry thousands of books around at a time. But that’s where the major similarities between the different types of Kindles end. We are not including Kindle Fire tablets among these devices because they are more tablet than e-reader.

While they may look similar on the outside, Kindles vary significantly in pricing, storage, and features. They come in different sizes, with some nearly as small as a smartphone and others rivaling an Apple iPad. They also offer different brightness capabilities, lighting tints, and water resistance.

We want to help you decide which one is the best for your needs and budget so that you can start tackling that never-ending book list. Here’s a breakdown of the best Kindles, based on our hands-on testing and research.

Best Kindles

• Best Overall: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite

• Best Budget: Amazon Kindle

• Upgrade Pick: Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition

• Kids’ Budget Pick: Kindle Kids
  

• Best for Kids: Kindle Paperwhite Kids
  

• Notes On the Go: Kindle Scribe

What to Consider

No matter which one you choose, all of the latest generations of Kindles come with glare-free displays with 300 ppi resolution, Bluetooth to listen to audiobooks on wireless headphones, parental controls, and Wi-Fi connectivity. They’re all about as slim as a smartphone, too.

There are a few factors that differ from one Kindle to the next, though. Here’s what to keep in mind as you shop for a Kindle.

Size

Kindles come in three display sizes: 6 inches, 6.8 inches, and 10.2 inches. A Kindle with a small or medium screen might work well for you if you want something you can easily hold with one hand and tuck in a bag for a trip. On the other hand, the larger Kindle Scribe might be a better fit if you prefer a display that can show a lot of text at once and you tend to do your reading at home (or you don’t mind lugging something a little larger with you on your commute).

Capacity

E-books take up so little space, even the 8 GB of storage on the Kindle Paperwhite should be enough for avid readers. It can hold thousands of books at any given time.

Capacity becomes a more important factor in choosing a Kindle for an audiobook lover, though. You’ll only have room for about 35 Audible audiobooks (give or take) on an 8 GB device, whereas you can hold more than 160 Audible audiobooks on the 32 GB Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition or Kindle Scribe. And don’t forget, you can always archive your Audible and Kindle purchases to read again later. This is not the case for documents uploaded to your Kindle.

Light Brightness and Color

From four LEDs on the basic Kindle to 35 LEDs on the Kindle Scribe, the front light brightness can make a big difference in how well you can read on the device in different conditions (such as outdoors in the sun).

Another difference between the most affordable Kindles and those in the mid-range and up is the option to have adjustable warm light. This feature allows you to tweak the tone of the display from a cool white to a warm light orange, based on your preferences. For those of us who are die-hard night readers, the blue light can affect your sleep, so if you like to read before bed, consider a Kindle that can be read with warmer light.

You also have the added advantage of auto-adjusting light on some higher-end models. That makes it easier on your eyes when you move from a bright setting (like your back deck) to a dimmer environment (such as your den).

Writing Capability

The Kindle Scribe comes with a cool digital pen that allows you to take notes, mark up PDFs, and even complete e-workbooks on the e-reader. If that’s a must-have feature, you’ll want to splurge on the Scribe. But if not, you’re probably better off saving money on a less expensive Kindle. This also makes it a fantastic gift for college students who buy their textbooks digitally but still want to be able to “write in the margins” and highlight.

How We Selected

To help us narrow down the best Kindles, Amazon let us borrow three of their latest e-readers: the Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite, and Kindle Scribe. We own the kids’ Kindle Paperwhite, kids’ Kindle, and the Kindle Paperwhite Signature — rounding out the set! We set each one up and played with it for several hours, downloading various e-book samples and personal documents, reading them in different lighting conditions, and more generally exploring the different features of each device. For the kids’ Kindles, we set them up with Kindle kids’ subscriptions and handed them out to our offspring for testing. Those kids really put them through their trials, trust us.

Best Overall

The Kindle Paperwhite strikes the perfect balance for most readers; it’s slim and lightweight and has a bright and adjustable display. While it’s not the most compact of the bunch, we think it’s worth the trade-off for the slightly larger 6.8-inch display and other features — and it’s still small enough to take on your daily commute or on vacation. You’ll barely notice it in your briefcase or a small tote.

The screen is sharp and it’s easy on the eyes. We were able to see the text of an e-book in crystal-clear clarity whether we were reading on the couch or on a sunny bench outside.

If you like reading in the tub — or by the pool — fear not! The latest version of the Paperwhite is completely waterproof. During our tests with the new Paperwhite, we found that it survived a dip in a bubbly tub with no issues. However, turning pages is slightly difficult with a wet touch screen, and we wish Amazon had put physical buttons for page-turning on it for this reason. Regardless, its waterproof design makes it a great gift idea for people who love cruising, hanging out by the pool, or doing just about anything near water.

As for storage, this baby only holds 8 GB of data. Considering that it’s about $40 more expensive than the basic Kindle, which comes with 16 GB, we think the lower capacity for e-books and audiobooks is stingy. That said, the Kindle Paperwhite’s 8 GB of storage should still be more than most readers can fill with e-books, although audiobooks could fill it up a lot more quickly.

The Kindle Paperwhite charges with a USB-C cable in about 5 hours from a computer or 2.5 hours with a wall adapter. We were impressed with the battery life — it lasts about 10 weeks if you read for about 30 minutes a day at a mid-range brightness with the Wi-Fi turned off. In theory, you could take the Paperwhite on a weeklong vacation without ever needing to plug it in.

Given its versatility and a collection of features that offer great bang for your buck, the Kindle Paperwhite is the best Kindle for most people. This is the Kindle that the majority of BookTok users have shown in their videos, and those folx read.

Best Budget

The standard Kindle is Amazon’s most affordable model. While it doesn’t offer all the bells and whistles of higher-end Kindles, it’s a solid pick if you’re looking for a reliable, no-frills e-reader that won’t break the bank.

The device has a 6-inch screen and comes in black or denim blue. While we generally preferred Kindles with the flush-front design, the bezel case of the original Kindle helped keep our fingers (and smudges!) off the display screen. We also loved that we could hold it with just one hand.

The backlight is adjustable, so you can read comfortably both indoors and out at any time of day. While it boasted a white paper-like display, we missed having the adjustable warm light on some of the other Kindle devices. It also felt a little more prone to glare, although not enough to seriously compromise our reading experience.

At full charge, this Kindle will last about 6 weeks if you’re reading about a half hour per day. It recharges fast, too — you won’t need to spend more than a couple of hours to juice up the e-reader.

The standard Kindle is best for bookworms on a tight budget or for gifting to a parent or grandparent who could use a simple e-reader with a moderate storage capacity. But we think if you can afford it, it’s worth paying a little more for the waterproof Kindle Paperwhite: It only comes at a slightly higher cost but offers a much more robust collection of features.

Despite the limited features, the standard Kindle has won over thousands of customers. Says one reviewer, “I recently gifted the Kindle, the lightest and most compact version with a 6-inch display, to my wife, and it has become an absolute game-changer in her reading experience.”

Upgrade Pick

The Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition has everything we love about the Kindle Paperwhite — including a moderately sized display, adjustable warm light, and waterproof case — but with a few bonus features that might make it worth the extra cost for some readers.

The biggest upgrade the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition offers is the storage space — a whopping 32 GB. That’s four times the capacity of the Kindle Paperwhite. That alone would make it a worthwhile gift for an audiobook lover.

The Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition is also the only Kindle that can be charged wirelessly on a Qi charging pad (sold separately). While you won’t be too inconvenienced charging any of your Kindles the old-fashioned way (the batteries keep the devices powered for weeks!), the wireless charging capabilities of this e-reader make it feel more high-tech than the others. It’s a fun feature that’s bound to become even more common as wireless charging becomes more ubiquitous. Honestly, we only tested it to see if it worked. It’s not our first choice for charging.

One of our senior editors, Cat Bowen, uses this Kindle daily and says, “It feels the most like a book out of all the Kindles. It’s the size of a trade paperback but a heck of a lot lighter, and fits into even my smaller purses. It’s my book BFF.”

Kids’ Budget Pick

The Kindle Kids is essentially the standard Kindle we previously mentioned but with a more kid-friendly design. It sports the same 6-inch, glare-free display and even comes with a colorful cover to protect it from scratches — choose from a scene with an ocean, a friendly unicorn, or a whale swimming through outer space. It’s backed by a 2-year worry-free guarantee, which means that Amazon will replace the Kindle if it breaks from accidents like drops or spills.

Every purchase of a Kindle Kids edition comes with a one-year subscription to Amazon Kids+. This service grants access to timeless kid-friendly classics like The Boxcar Children and popular series like Harry Potter.

Parents can set educational goals and manage content thanks to the Kindle’s integrated parental controls, and the device’s Vocabulary Builder and Word Wise features help kids learn new words and tackle more challenging books. It also boasts 16 GB of storage, so your kid will always have room for the next book on their list.

The biggest downside of this e-reader is that it’s not waterproof, so kids will need to be careful if they’re reading near the pool or bathtub. But overall, it’s an excellent device of great value that will help encourage your child to read more.

Best for Kids

The Kindle Paperwhite Kids comes with a price tag that can be tough to swallow for a device for a child. But we still think it’s worth the splurge if you’re looking for a gift for an avid young reader.

Like the Kindle Kids, the Kindle Paperwhite Kids boasts a battery that can keep the device going for up to 10 weeks with moderate use. It charges quickly (less than 2.5 hours when plugged into a USB-C power adapter). It comes with one of three cases your kid will love. Choose from themes like emerald forest, robot dreams, and warrior cats.

It includes a one-year subscription to Amazon Kids+, so your child can load it up with kid-friendly books almost immediately. And it comes with a 2-year worry-free guarantee, meaning Amazon will replace it if it breaks.

The Kindle Paperwhite Kids stands out from its more basic counterpart in three key areas, though: It’s waterproof and has been proven to withstand accidental immersion in water, so you don’t have to stress if your kid wants to read by the pool or get some stories in during bathtime. It has a slightly larger 6.8-inch display. The other major difference is the adjustable warm light: This feature will allow young readers to tune the display to their liking, which we think will keep them reading even longer.

If you’re on a tight budget, you can’t go wrong with the Kindle Kids. However, if you’ve got a few extra bucks to spare, a child might really appreciate a waterproof version of the kid-friendly e-reader with an adjustable warm light — especially if they’re the type to constantly have their nose buried in a book.

“I wouldn't hesitate to grab one of these for a kid of about 8 or older,” says Bowen. “If they’re burning through books, this version is easy on their eyes and damn durable. My daughter uses hers on the bus and in the car... in restaurants... or whenever she wants to pretend we don’t exist.”

Notes On the Go

The Kindle Scribe is a jumbo-size e-reader with a price tag to match. At 10.2 inches, its display screen leaves all other Kindles in the dust (although it might be a little cumbersome to lug around). We appreciated how bright and clear it displayed text. We also loved that it had an adjustable warm light and auto-adjusting light that worked so well that we barely noticed when it got brighter or dimmer in different settings (it felt a little like magic!).

But size and lighting aren’t the only way the Kindle Scribe stands out from the competition: It’s also the only one that lets you take notes by hand, digitally. The accompanying digital pen allows you to write notes in the margins of e-books, create new hand-written documents using one of 18 templates (like notebook paper, sheet music, and daily schedules), and make your mark on a new set of “write-on books,” like digital planners and sudoku puzzle books. The pen worked seamlessly and was about as close to writing on paper as you can get from a digital device. If you know someone who loves completing crossword puzzles and word games or relaxes while doodling, consider gifting them this Kindle.

We were hoping this feature would be as useful as it was novel, but ultimately, it let us down when it came to PDFs. Using the Kindle Scribe, we marked up a PDF we had imported through the Kindle app on our iPhone. But when we tried to see the marked-up version on the phone app after we saved it on the Kindle Scribe, it failed to sync — even after several days of troubleshooting. The only way we could easily get it from the Kindle to another device was to use the “share via email” function, which emails you a downloadable link to the PDF that expires after a week. It felt very clunky and limited how much use we think a businessperson could get from this otherwise business-oriented device. On the bright side, we found that the Kindle Scribe’s handwriting-to-text conversion tool worked really well if that’s something you feel you need.

We’re excited to see improvements Amazon makes to the Kindle Scribe in future generations. Right now, it’s a little gimmicky for the sky-high price. We think you can skip the splurge of the Kindle Scribe if the handwriting feature isn’t something you’re 100% sure you need, and go for the Paperwhite instead.

Kindle Paperwhite

Kindle

Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition

More:

Our Favorite Cases for Your Kindle

Gift Ideas for the Bookworm in Your Life

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