3 Kindle Alternatives That Still Have Buttons To Turn Pages

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Amazon's Kindle lineup is popular, but since the discontinuation of the Kindle Oasis, there's no Kindle on offer with physical page-turn buttons. This leaves you at the mercy of the touchscreen, which isn't always ideal or as convenient as a physical button. Fortunately, Amazon's Kindle isn't the only e-reader in town. Several manufacturers, including Barnes & Noble, Rakuten's Kobo, and Boox, offer a range of B&W and color Kindle alternatives in different form factors and with different features.

If you're looking to move to a more digital book-reading experience or just want an e-reader for your beach trip, but prefer the convenience of physical buttons, you still have a few options if you're willing to go beyond the Kindle-branded experience. However, as not all e-readers are made equal, we have picked some of the best on the market after carefully considering expert reviews and buyer feedback. All our recommendations can be officially purchased in the U.S.

Kobo's Libra Colour, which is one of our gadget recommendations for frequent flyers, is a widely appreciated e-reader that is popular among both experts and shoppers thanks to its color e-ink screen and an impressive feature set. At a list price of $230, it's cheaper than Amazon's top color e-readers, the Kindle Colorsoft and the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft. The Libra Colour features a 7-inch display that not only shows visuals and text in crisp, vibrant colors but also supports a stylus for marking up and highlighting e-books.

The e-reader can also function as your journal with built-in notebooks and supports cloud backup to Kobo Cloud, Dropbox, or Google Drive. But more importantly, it has built-in physical page-turn buttons, making it more ergonomic to hold for longer periods. It can carry more than 20,000 e-books thanks to its 32 GB storage capacity, plus it supports audiobooks, which you can listen to using Bluetooth headphones. As for the e-books themselves, you can download or purchase them from Kobo's own store or borrow them from your local library using Overdrive. The Kobo Libra Colour is also water-resistant, making it great for beach trips.

Experts appreciate the e-reader's responsive experience and long battery life. It can last for weeks with around one hour of reading every day. Unfortunately, the stylus is an added cost, and the availability of books on the Kobo Store isn't at the same level as Kindle's e-book store.

The Boox Go Color 7 (Gen II) is another solid e-reader with physical page-turn buttons to consider. Like the Kobo Libra Colour, it has a thick bezel on one side that houses the page-turn buttons and supports a stylus. However, you can customize the buttons to control volume or scroll web pages. Page turns can also be performed using the built-in 7-inch touchscreen display, which uses the same E Ink Kaleido 3 tech as most other color e-readers on the market. Colors look natural, as they would look on a color print, but can't be compared to an iPad or an Android tablet. 

One major highlight of the Boox Go Color 7 is its ability to run apps from the Google Play Store, since it runs on Android 13. This significantly increases its versatility, making it more than a simple e-reader. While it can technically play games and videos, the e-ink technology isn't quite suitable for that, and you'll be better off using a tablet or your smartphone for such tasks. 

The Boox also features a water-repellent design to handle splashes and a microSD card for more storage. Experts find the Boox Go Color 7 to be responsive thanks to its octa-core processor, capable of delivering a good battery life, and offering an enjoyable e-reading experience. Notable complaints about the e-reader include the cheap back plastic and a lack of e-ink optimized Android apps, while some Amazon shoppers were particularly unhappy with how Android runs on the device and its multitasking experience. It's also pretty expensive at $290.

Although the PocketBook Era is one of the oldest e-readers on this list, having launched back in 2022, it's certainly worth considering for anyone who wants physical page-turn buttons. The model remains available in the U.S. and carries a price tag of $249. It features a 7-inch monochrome e-ink display and is IPX8-rated for water resistance. The software experience is decent, with clear tabs for your e-books, audiobooks, notes, and other available apps. However, experts and buyers say the user interface can feel a bit sluggish; fortunately, page turns are relatively snappy.

There is also support for Overdrive (Libby) to read e-books from your local library. However, the integrated e-book store doesn't officially support the U.S.; as a result, you'll have to buy e-books from elsewhere or download free e-books to enjoy them on the Era. That said, there is support for 23 formats so that you can enjoy e-books in pretty much any format. 

The one notable drawback of the PocketBook Era is its relatively poor contrast ratio, which lags behind competitors like the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite that lack physical page-turn buttons. One possible reason for the reduced contrast is the additional screen protection for scratch resistance included in the e-reader.

Although the selection of e-readers that come with physical page-turn buttons isn't massive, there are a number of options that you can consider. So, while picking out Kindle alternatives with page-turning buttons, we looked at e-readers that have received solid feedback from buyers and experts alike. We also considered e-readers with both color and B&W screens, their feature sets, availability in the U.S., and overall performance.