My phone screen is too small. I have a separate, larger e-ink screen for that.
this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2026
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No, the screen is too small.
ProseReader is pretty good
Yes l just started today also l am using librera
I could not imagine reading longer texts on my phone. I always send everything to my iPad and even then, screens are anti-relaxing to me. E-paper is fine but I prefer real books. Alternatively audio books for long car rides but that’s usually reserved for music and podcasts.
Yes. I've got a Kobo reader but mostly use the Kobo phone app to read the books I buy there. For my own files, eg from Project Gutenberg, I use ReadEra Premium, which is superior to the Kobo app. It can handle just about any format, including .mobi, which not even Amazon's Kindle app does now. I like it a lot.
Finally, there's Libby, the library app. I use it mainly to read the New Yorker magazine. You need to belong to a library first. Sign up to Libby and you can borrow from the library's collection. Mine allows you to borrow a book for two weeks, so I mainly stick to magazines.
I'm so used to reading on my phone now that I find print books cumbersome and limiting - I always have half a dozen books on the go and can't imagine carting around that many books.
My partner does and I have no idea how they stand it, for ebooks, my library works with my kobo so it's either that or epubs. I can do a tablet for ebooks but I find the phone way too small.
Libby is supported by a bunch of library systems on android, used KOReader for ebooks on android too.
If you read in any other languages, the phone is great. I make the type big to avoid eyestrain, and i have a couple of dictionaries installed for unfamiliar words. It’s so much faster than paper dictionaries - i don’t even lose my page.
For books in English: paper.
It is a bit of eye strain (pixel 9a) However, I have tried with koreader which kinda makes it like a ebook, also on a tablet. It's still an eye strain. I have however on occasion use librerareader and used the text to speech to 'listen' to ebooks.
Yes.
Project Gutenberg website. They also have files you can download, but I prefer using the website.
Moon Reader+ and Calibre. (There are some other suggestions for obtaining material listed that are great). I read 3-4 books a week, sometimes more.
I've used moon+ reader pro for years. Maybe even since it's release. (Admittedly I don't use it as much anymore as I prefer eink devices for reading but am stuck with a kindle for now)
The tons of customization options was my biggest draw. plenty of font/layout and color options to help find what works best for you and your device.
I also love and use calibre, but I'm not sure it's needed by OP at this time. It doesn't sound like they've got a large collection of books so I think it would just be overkill and depending on their tech level might turn them off.
Moon Reader+ has been my epub reader for many years and it's worth the few bucks to buy. The free version is perfectly adequate if you don't want to read pdf files. I don't read on a phone, but prefer a tablet with the larger screen, but have used it on a phone without too much discomfort when my tablet died.
Same here. I've used this app for over a decade now. I'm just now realizing it.
Technically, Manga and manhwa ARE Books. So, if I round it up, I read books on pirating sites.
I use an ereader that runs googke text to speach which makes any book an audiobook. I listen to about a book a day.
There are plenty of apps that can open EPUB files. I use one of those.
No, that's why I bought a Kobo last year and it's been great. The phone is for audiobooks.
I always said I'd never do ebooks, mostly because of the screen. Then came eink. I resisted for years but finally got a kobo last year and I fucking love it.
No more carrying 5 paperbacks on a trip, just the kobo with 20+ books queued up and ready to go. Plus, I can read in the dark without disturbing the spouse with the backlight on 1%
I begrudgingly have been won over.
But yeah, screw books on phones with LCD/OLED... eInk only.
When I use/d my phone for reading I always go high contrast - Black background and bright orange text.
Whether LCD or OLED I find that color combo works great for legibility while keeping screen brightness low in the dark (to reduce eye strain) and not having to set brightness as high during the day outdoors (preventing the screen from eating the battery as quickly.)
Nice. I also recently added an ebook with some games to play with a standard deck of cards. So I can bring my kobo and a deck of cards since I have some games queued up to learn.
Absolutely! I use the Libby app and a regular library card. They link up so you can read all the ebooks in your library system for free, just like checking a regular book out. Sometimes you have to wait for a popular book, which I usually try to appreciate as a rare exercise in patience but can be annoying of course. But it's actually free, no adds, simple to use.
Get a Kobo. They're awesome for reading. They feel like paper, like you're reading a real book. And it's pretty simple to sideload books. Plus you only have to charge them every few weeks, up to a month sometimes.
That's step 2. - They want to get into reading.
Step 1 is to do it the cheapest way possible. Which means either real books or on a device they already have.
Then if they find they enjoy it they can/should start spending some money on hardware/software to enhance the experience.
But there's no reason for them to spend any money on tech until they know reading recreationally is for them.
Get a used kobo. An aura or h2o can be had for $50 or less on eBay and will do all that you need, has a battery you can actually replace, and has an active 3rd party software community if you find the default (perfectly good) software lacking.
Plus one for Kobo, mine is almost 10yo and still going strong. Plenty of storage even for long vacations. My partner uses a Kindle and rages against its limitations 😅
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Anna's Archive or libgen for downloading epub, Librera Pro from F-Droid for reading.
PDF sucks, epub let's you configure everything like font, font size, space between lines and alignment to the left.
I pretty much prefer reading on my phone than physical book.
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Moon+ reader as an app for reading on your phone. I've had it on every device since my Galaxy S. And the app is still maintained, receiving regular updates. Nice to be able to read a couple of pages when standing in line somewhere instead of mindlessly scrolling.
I’ve been using the pro version, Moon+ Reader Pro, for years. It’s great for reading EPUBs, which I either buy DRM-free or, if that’s not possible, in any format and then download a “liberated” copy from Anna’s Archive.
I find reading on my phone to be far easier than on paper due to dyslexia.
I use Libera FD, it's a combination eBook, PDF, document viewer that can scan your docs and form fit them to your desired font, size, and density.
As for getting books, annas-archive is my new best friend. I grab every weird fiction and horror I can get my hands on.
I enjoy reading on my phone when other people are around, for instance during lunch at work or at a park or something. If I read a normal dead tree book, I get people asking me what it is I'm reading, what it's about, WHY I'm reading, and so on. If I read on my phone, I'm just another Standard Phone Zombie and can be ignored.
Ha ha, that reminds me of some of the performative reading I did as a teen - ostentatiously reading a "cool" or difficult book to impress people. The joke was on me when I started reading War and Peace. I got swept away by it, loved it, and was condemned to carrying around this massive paperback until I'd finished it.
THAT will teach you.
I do almost all of my reading on my phone and have for more than a decade. There are many excellent book reading apps, but your source for material will probably limit those options. I prefer books in the ePub format when possible. PDF files also work fairly well, although they are not as convenient to read because they have built-in page breaks that don't correspond match up with phone screens. Standard ePub and PDF files do not include any DRM (copy protection), although there are variants which do.
If you buy books from Amazon you have to use their Kindle app (unless you use tools to strip the DRM). Borrowing books from your library is a great option, but that will also limit your reader options. Many use OverDrive, which has its own reader. Fortunately Kindle and OverDrive both work pretty well.
Personally, I use various tools to remove the DRM from the eBooks that I buy, then I convert them to ePub. I do believe in authors getting paid for their work, so I don't share them.
Have you done any DRM stripping recently? I bought books back in my Kindle days that are now trapped there. They made changes last year so you can't easily transfer files on to your Kindle reader and I think they tightened the DRM too. I tried via Calibre, which used to work but doesn't any more.
DRM is always a moving target. For a long time I used the free DeDRM tools in combination with Calibre to remove it from Kindle books, but that software is no longer supported. There are several commercial options. The only one I've found that has really kept up with the changes is EPubor Ultimate.
When the big change hit, almost nothing worked for a while. EPubor got their DRM-removal working again in a month or so. Since then, I don't think they've ever been more than a week behind in updating their software to deal with the changes.
I hate DRM. I pay for everything I use and feel that I should be treated as a valued customer and not as a probable thief.
Thanks! For me, finding books I'd bought and paid for locked away underlined the stupidity of DRM. If they were print books, I could lend them to people, sell them, give them away. Because they'd belong to me, I bought them. No fuss about intellectual property rights or whatever.
I am 20. I've been reading books for as long as I can remember. There's a place called the Internet Archive. It has an open library. There are lots of books there in lots of languages. I sometimes read books from there. It is for free btw.
yeah i occasionally do this with epubs from shadow libraries. it's not foss but i use Lithium (com.faultexception.reader) for it. only works for epub, but it's very lightweight/fast and not privacy invading. there's a pro version but the free one seems to work fine, and i couldn't find any cracked versions. having my volup btn for next page is very useful for one hand reading in mass transit.
No, I read books on paper.
My local library uses overdrive for ebooks, which you can check out and either download for kindle, download as epub, or read online in your internet browser. I usually download to an eink reader, but if I'm reading on my phone I use the read in browser option.
Suggestion: if you plan to read on your phone, look in the settings to set the background and text color of whatever app you choose to something that doesn't strain your eyes.
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