The Big Question: what’s the best smartphone reading app?
The best book is the one you’ve already got in your pocket…
Parchment killed cave wall scribbles. Books killed parchment. Kindles killed the book. Fin.
Well, actually, not fin. Books are still very much alive – our local Waterstones hasn’t been converted into a vape bar quite just yet – and ebook readers, while obviously more convenient than lugging around an entire collection of Harry Potter fan fiction – still aren’t ideal for slipping into your pocket.
Oh, hello smartphone.
Yep, it’s all too easy to forget that the smartphone – our Pocketable Happiness Portal which bring us cat gifs, memes Tinder matches and more – is also capable of beaming words into your brain.
No, we’re not going to stand here and outright lie – a Kindle (or any other decent ereader) is still obviously going to offer you a more comfortable reading experience thanks to a combination of a larger screen, the ability to be read easily in direct sunlight, and a much longer battery life, but a smartphone is on you at all times, and still offers a more than comfortable way to devour words on the go.
From delayed trains, to an OAP counting out pennies at the till in Tesco, a good book instantly available on your smartphone should help soothe bubbling rage and boredom in equal measure.
Moon+ Reader (Android, from £free)
Moon+ Reader is one of the best, most fully-featured reading apps out there at the moment.
It’s incredibly customisable, letting you set the font, background colour and text colour to anything you fancy, and it supports a tonne of file formats too, though DRM-protected Kindle books won’t work.
We recommend setting it up so you’ve got a black background with white text – a combination that’s extremely easy on the eyes. If you’ve got a smartphone with an AMOLED screen, then the black background will help eek out a little extra battery life too, as all black pixels are actually turned off.
Why read on your phone?
Ereaders like the Kindle Oasis are great, but if you’re out without a bag, they’re a hassle to carry around and too uncomfortable to slip into a regular pocket, let alone some skinny tailored Topshop threads. You’ve got your smartphone on you all the time, so why not make use of it?
If you’ve got a long commute with signal dead spots, then ebooks are a great way to fill the time in between reddit and WhatsApp binges too.
Marvin 3 (iOS, £free)
iPhone users should definitely check out Marvin 3, which is one of the more powerful ereading apps available on the App Store.
It too, has a plethora of customisation features, and even lets you side-load your own fonts for good measure, if you’re into that sort of thing.
A new update has also added support for the iPhones Taptic Engine, which means it has all sorts of delightful vibrations for your fingertips as you turn the pages. Which is nice, we suppose.
Are you going to ruin your eyes?
Honestly, we’ve had no trouble reading entire books on 5in 1080p screens, and once you adjust the font size to something that’s comfortable, you should have no problems at all.
It’s definitely worth adjusting the colours too, especially in apps which let you tweak both the background and font colour. Your eyes will thank you when you’re reading in bed without a beaming white screen searing your retinas.
Google Play Books (Android, iOS, £free)
Google’s own reading app might not have the in-depth customisation options of its peers, but the vast library of books available to buy, download and read in an instant makes it incredibly convenient for serious bookworms.
You can try out samples of books before you splash out some cash, and uploading your own ebooks to your Google Play Books account means that you can access all of your reading material in one place. #handy
Download Google Play Books for Android here
Download Google Play Books for iOS here
Freeadom
There are plenty of free, legally obtainable books online, just waiting for you to come and pluck them from their virtual shelves.
Reddit’s Free Ebooks subreddit is a good place to start, as is openculture.com, which has a list of hundreds of digital tomes awaiting your perusal.
Kindle (Android, iOS, £free)
If you’re a real book addict then it’s well worth considering forking out £7.99 a month for Kindle Unlimited, which is essentially Spotify for ebooks and audiobooks, which can be accessed on Amazon’s Kindle app.
Sign up for the 30-day free trial and have a look at the selection of books on offer before deciding to stick with it, mind, because the selection is limited when compared to Amazon’s gargantuan literary library.
Esat Dedezade
Contributor 
