The best of today's ebook readers

Ebooks have numerous benefits. Eliminating paper saves resources. Ebook readers take up little room in travelers' backpacks and purses, and yet can store the equivalent of a whole bookshelf. You don't have to go anywhere to buy or borrow an ebook title. For the vision impaired, the ability to adjust font size can mean the difference between being able to read a book and having to hope that the publisher will eventually release an audio version. Some ebook readers double as music players, and some even have a speech capability for reading books aloud.

Unfortunately, the world of ebooks is Balkanized, with multiple incompatible file formats and digital rights management (DRM) technologies, and devices with varying support for both. Books in the public domain are widely available in PDF and other standard formats. But copyrighted material is another story. Amazon's current Kindles can obtain commercial ebooks in Amazon's AZW file format via wireless download only in the United States (in early October, however, the company announced a Kindle capable of downloading content in most countries).

Adobe offers a DRM technology called Adobe Content Server 4. Sony and a number of other online bookstores, most notably Borders, sell commercial titles in ePub/ACS4 format, and some libraries let patrons check out ePub books. As of early October, 17 ebook readers supported ePub and ACS4, making that combination the closest thing the industry has to a standard for DRM-protected books. Aside from the Amazon Kindles and Foxit's eSlick, all of the ebook readers in this collection of reviews support ePub/ACS4.

We compiled a comparison chart of the five highest ranking e-readers at the conclusion of our evaluations. For the details, see the specs chart.