Top Free Android E-book Readers

An electronic book (commonly abbreviated e-book) is a text and image-based publication which can be read on many different types of devices including dedicated e-book readers, smartphones, tablets, and computers.

The rise of multimedia digital downloads in recent years has been unprecedented. The impact has been so great in respect of digital music downloads that they have more than doubled in the past 4 years and caused a continuing decline in sales of CDs. This has prompted some music labels to stop releasing singles on a physical format. Whilst it is highly unlikely that any of the major book publishing companies will abandon paperbacks, the expansion of digital downloads equally applies to books. The biggest booksellers report that they now sell more digital books than paperbacks.

Digital books are well established. Project Gutenberg, an online library of books that can be downloaded free of charge, has been expanding its collection since 1971. Almost its entire library consists of books that are available in the public domain, although there are a few copyright texts which are also included.

The popularity of digital e-books has been accelerated by a number of dedicated portable e-book readers. Amazon Kindle, Sony's eBook readers, and Barnes and Noble nook are extremely popular devices which have enabled readers to conveniently access a huge library of books, magazines and newspapers on the move. What is particularly noteworthy is that Linux is the operating system that drives these devices. However, having a separate device to read e-books is not always desirable. Step forward Android smartphones and tablets which offer an alternative way to read e-books on the move.

There is a good range of free e-book software available for Android. To provide an insight into that software, we have compiled a list of 7 of our favorite e-book software. Hopefully, there will be something of interest here for anyone who wants to read electronic books on the move. We give our highest recommendation to Aldiko and FBReader.

So, let's explore the 7 e-book tools at hand. For each application we have compiled its own portal page, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, screenshots, together with links to relevant resources and reviews.

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Last Updated Thursday, October 13 2011 @ 10:57 AM EDT