A good book reader app should have text and background settings, as well as the ability to add bookmarks, search by text, and synchronize between devices. A plus would be the presence of translator and text voiceover functions. I tried to find such an app, for this I installed 30 apps, tested them, and selected only the best ones.
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| Functional | Librera | ReadEra | Moon Reader | Read | FullReader | PocketBook | eReader | eBoox |
| Search by text | Bad | Comfortable | Comfortable | Normal | Bad | Bad | Bad | Comfortable |
| Annotations and notes | Yes | Yes, there is export. | Yes, there is export. | Yes, there is export. | Yes, without export. | Yes | Yes, without export. | Yes, there is export. |
| Synchronization between devices | Yes | In the paid version. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Built-in dictionary/translator | There is a translator | There is, but it is inconvenient. | Dictionary and translator, via browser. | No | Dictionary and translator | There is a translator | Dictionary and translator | No |
| Advertising | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Voice to text | Eat | No | Only in the paid version. | No | Free | There is a free one | There is a paid and a free one | No |
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Librera
There are many apps for reading books, but Librera really stands out among them. The first thing that surprised me about this app was the number of possible options for sorting and grouping books. In addition to the standard ones, such as sorting by author, size and file type, there is also sorting by genre, language, year of publication, number of pages and language.
In the Settings menu, you can choose one of four design themes, including a theme for e-readers. There is also a built-in blue light filter, which reduces eye strain and makes reading more comfortable. There is also a mode for the visually impaired.
One of the most interesting features of Librera is the speed reading function. You can set the speed from 10 to 900 words per minute. Among the additional features of Librera, it is worth noting the ability to highlight the initial letters of words, which makes reading faster and reduces eye strain. The application also offers a function for notifying about rest at certain intervals.
In addition, Librera offers the ability to create bookmarks in a book while listening to the text-to-speech. This is especially convenient when using headphones. You can also adjust the speed and pitch of the voice. There is even the option to set the duration of pauses between sentences or paragraphs.
The app also offers the ability to translate selected text via Google Translate or another app of your choice. You can quickly switch between light and dark mode and choose from 14 font options.
Available for Android.
RedEra
RedEra provides many settings for comfortable reading. The user can choose a font from five options, specify the text size, adjust the line spacing. The application also offers seven different color schemes, including the "Console" scheme, which is especially suitable for reading science fiction.
Another useful feature is adding bookmarks and a citation function that allows you to save interesting quotes. Synchronization is available for users of the paid version of the application. Also, in the paid version, you can upload your own fonts and choose colors for quotes.
You can specify the desired search area for books and documents on your device and add folders to exclude. Another useful feature is the reading mode at startup, which automatically opens the last book you read.
Cons: no voice acting.
Available for Android.
Read from Litres
Here you can search and download books directly in the app. Let me explain! The main page features popular books, new releases, and the ability to browse books by genre. Most books are available for free. There is also a search button that allows you to find the book you need. For example, to find Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita," just enter the title in the search bar. If the book is in the app's catalog, you can start reading it right away.
For convenience, you can select the font (8 options), text size and color, and adjust the screen backlight. Three design themes are available: white background, sepia and dark background. In addition, you can adjust text alignment, line spacing, margins and word wrap.
Cons: no translator or dictionary, you can't upload your own books, quite a lot of ads that you can't skip. The commercials are about 30 seconds long. But there is a way to get rid of the ads for 60 pages of the book. To do this, you need to watch the commercial.
Available for Android.
Moon Reader
You can choose the font size and color, background color, and upload your own background image. Various fonts, text smoothing and justification settings, and hyphenation are available.
The app also offers screen brightness adjustment by swiping along the edge of the screen and activation of the red line for easier reading. I especially liked the presence of a built-in blue light filter, which helps reduce the impact of blue light on the eyes. You can choose from 8 available design themes and customize the app interface to your taste, for example, leaving only the necessary buttons on the toolbar.
It is worth noting the full-fledged search, which opens in full screen and allows you to easily find the right moment. The application also has a built-in dictionary and online translator, but the translation opens in the browser, and not inside the application itself.
You can also get information about the book, find out your reading speed, time spent, and view the reading history. It is possible to create your own notes. Moon Reader also offers synchronization, including the last read position, using a cloud service.
Cons: The text-to-speech function is only available in the paid version.
Available for Android.
PocketBook
One of the most interesting features of the app is the instant translation mode. It allows you to translate words very quickly by simply tapping on them. Moreover, you can choose a program for translation, such as Google Translate, Abby Lingvo or Reverso Context.
The application also supports working with network libraries. Although only one network library with books in English is pre-installed by default, you can add another. To organize books by topic or, for example, by language, you can create collections.
The app also includes six main fonts, and you can customize their size, line spacing, and borders. The app also offers a text-to-speech feature. You can adjust the speed and pitch of your voice, and choose your preferred voice module from those installed on your phone.
Cons: you can't open search results in a new window, the quote export button doesn't work.
Available for Android.
eReader
eReader has support for most popular formats such as EPUB, PDF, MOBI and others.
There are 6 reading fonts to choose from, you can adjust the text and margin size, and choose one of three modes: white, sepia, and dark. If you want, you can specify your own font folder to add them to the app. You can set the background and text color to your favorites, and even upload your own background images.
One of the most interesting features I found in the app is the ability to convert text to speech. You can choose a paid engine with neural networks for better voice acting or use free speech services from Google or Samsung. You can also set a sleep timer here. To make the voice sound more natural, you can adjust the speed and tone of the voice acting.
The app also has a translator function and a quick search for the selected word in dictionaries such as Wikipedia and Oxford Dictionary. To access books from different devices, you can set up synchronization via Google Drive and Dropbox.
Cons: Quotes cannot be exported to a separate text file.
Available for Android.
FullReader
One of the interesting features worth noting is access to the network library. The application allows you to manually specify a link to any OPDS catalog. The application can also work with popular cloud storages such as Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive, allowing you to save books in the cloud.
The app offers the ability to customize the font, font size and color, as well as customize the page background, including the ability to upload your own images. There is also a dark theme.
The app also offers the ability to voice the text with Russian language support. There is even a separate interface for controlling playback in the car, where the start and pause button becomes very large so that it is easy to press while driving. You can adjust the speed of the voiceover, choose different voices and engines. You can also set a timer, which is especially useful when listening to a book before going to bed.
In addition, interesting moments can be marked in any color. If you highlight a word, you can quickly access the Wiktionary online dictionary or see the translation directly in the application (without going to the browser).
Cons: When switching between sections, sometimes ads appear. The search is not very convenient to use, since it does not display page numbers with the found text. You can move between found fragments only using the "forward" and "back" arrows. In addition to all this, saved excerpts from the book can only be copied to the clipboard one at a time, which is inconvenient when working with a large number of quotes.
Available for Android.
eBoox
It is possible to make notes (in one of three colors) and bookmarks to mark important moments in the book. After finishing reading, they can be exported to a separate file. There is a possibility of synchronization via Google Disk, which allows you to save the reading progress, bookmarks and quotes.
In the settings, you can choose the background color from four options: white, septic, gray and black. Four different fonts are also available: Roboto, Tinos, Open Sans and Droid Serif. You can easily change the font size, margin size, line spacing and screen brightness.
Available for Android.
