Poll – What Devices Do you Read eBooks On?

December 3, 2017 By Michael Kozlowski 6 Comments

We live in a world where everyone has a smartphone in their pocket and a tablet in their home. E-Readers continue to be be popular with serious readers and in 2017 they have undergone a resurgence in popularity. What is the one device people read eBooks on the most? Over 3,000 people responded to our latest poll and the results are not at all shocking.

E-Readers were the most popular device to read ebooks on, capturing 1,852 of the total vote. This is not surprising because our website has over one million users per month that read the latest e-reader news and industry trends.

Tablets were in second place with 446 votes. One of the big reasons why large screens with full color are popular is because of the wide array of digital content. Magazines, manga, newspapers look great on the only over seven inches and you get the same experience as you would with print.

Smartphones were in third place with 391 votes and MAC/PC came in fourth with 200 votes. 157 other people professed their love for print or used alternative technologies such as Chromebooks.

Michael Kozlowski

Michael Kozlowski is the Editor in Chief of Good e-Reader. He has been writing about audiobooks and e-readers for the past ten years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and Verge.

Chris Kattner

Seems like this poll would have a biased sample (this is a site dedicated to e-readers) so what’s the point?
Albert

The poll doesn’t claim to represent the world at large. If you polled how many hours per week a person plays video games (console or PC), I’m pretty sure you’d get seriously different results from people polled here as opposed to a site like IGN. It wouldn’t invalidate the poll though.
Chris Kattner

I’m well aware of these factors you mentioned. And I don’t think think the poll is not valid. I just don’t think the results are very surprising (Michael mentions this in the article also) and I don’t see how they are useful. So, I still want to know what was the point of the survey? What meaningful conclusions can we draw?
X Ray

Seems to me that this is *exactly* the audience that should be targeted for this question.

If you want to know about automobiles, you don’t ask the Amish.
Albert

You know, I was a reader here well before I ever bought an e-ink ereader, I was comfortable reading on my tablets. I even went through the Goldilocks run of finding the perfect size.

My first was a 7-inch tablet (a bit small), then 8.9 inches (Nook HD+ – a bit big and heavy) and finally the 8.3-inch (just right). I finally caved and bought a PaperWhite, since there seemed no end of the 6-inch standard, but despite greatly enjoying the lack of eye-sore, the size was never comfortable. The Kobo Aura One (7.8 inches) is my dream device overall.

Anyhow, not everyone will have caved as I did. The stats show this, even among readers. Smartphone and tablet readers represent 45% the number of e-ink readers. If anything, considering the particularity of this site, it is surprisingly large, and shows how flexible the demographic for digital ereading is.
Heidi Steindel

I prefer to read on my NOOK and Kindle except where I want an audiobook companion then I use my iPad for then I can use whispersync to listen and read at the same time which a feature that does not exist yet on the new Kindle Oasis. The new oasis you can read or do audio but not both at the same time :(. If I forget to bring a device and then I will read on cell phone. “Kindle for Samsung” App you can get threw samsung app store you can get 1 free ebook a moth no subscriptions to pay. no fees. Also “Audio for Samsung” you can get a audio subscription 20% off for a year. So if you have a samsung phone or tablet you should be able to get it from the samsung app store