Hands-on: Which is this year's best ebook reader?

This year's new crop of e-readers add touchscreens - and, most importantly, glowing lights round the screen to enable people to read in bed.

Amazon has unveiled Paperwhite, its most hi-tech reader yet, with an unbelievably crisp screen and a 'glow' behind it that can be turned up and down for different lighting conditions.

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Kindle users will also be able to 'borrow' ebooks once a month from a library of 200,000 titles. But this year, Amazon does not have the e-reader market to itself.

American bookseller Barnes and Noble unveiled its own Nook Glowlight Touch, one of a range of its 'Nook' readers

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Kobo - the budget e-reader sold in WH Smith - also unveiled two new models, the KoboGlo and the KoboMini, a tiny 5-inch device which weighs just 134g.

But with prices ranging from £60 up to £169, and sizes from five inches to seven inches, deciding which one is right for you is also a little trickier this year.

Most have similarly high-quality screens - although Amazon's Paperwhite stands out - and most have book stores built in.

It's worth noting that Amazon's readers in particular are reluctant to deal with books that don't come from Amazon's own store.



Kobo Mini
5-inch
£60
Battery life 2 weeks
Memory 2Gb

This tiny device has a screen more akin to a smartphone, but it's surprisingly comfortable to read on, if you can stomach reading in two-sentence-size chunks. Choosing new books is easy on a responsive touchscreen, but there are no physical buttons bar off/on, and the tiny format is very odd - like you're reading a Beatrix Potter book. Great value, though.
Four stars

Kobo Glo
6-inch
£100
Battery life 1 month
Memory 2Gb
A little more svelte than the Glowlight Touch, the Kobo Glo is the cheapest way to get a frontlit reader - and it's perfectly good at its job, with clear text, a pleasant, readable light and quick page turns. A responsive touchscreen guides you through Kobo's well-built bookshop, and it's also easy to add your own books in most formats - in contrast to Amazon's e-readers.
Four stars

Nook Glowlight Touch
6 inch
£109
Battery life 1 month
Memory 2gB
The Glowlight Touch is a great touchscreen reader, with quick, responsive page turns and an easy-to-use menu system that pops up when you press the 'N' at the bottom, and paddles that make speed-reading easier. It's just not quite as good as Amazon's Paperwhite, though, and at the same price, it's impossible to recommend the Nook over Amazon's flagship.
Four stars

Kindle
6-inch
£69
Battery life 1 month
Memory 2Gb
No touchscreen, but the paddles here allow for lightnigh-fast reading. The lack of a frontlight leaves this behind its Paperwhite Stablemate, but it's still a capable reader - although buying new books is a bit fiddly with the virtual keyboard.
Three stars



Kindle Paperwhite
6 inches
£109-£169
Battery life 2 months
Memory 2Gb
The ultra-sharp E Ink screen on the Paperwhite outshines the competition instantly, and makes both book covers and text look fantastic. Ditching the trademark 'paddles' makes flipping pages a little less intuitive than previous Kindles, though - and £60 is pretty steep for a 3G phone connection to download books on the go, even if you never have to pay again.
Five stars