Kindle ebook reader for Android smartphones and tablets

The official Kindle app for Android is a good alternative to an ebook reader and lets you read your books on a smartphone or tablet.

Free to download from the Android Market, the Kindle app has a simple interface for navigating around purchased books and for making new purchases on the Kindle Store.

One of the best features is Amazon Whispersync, which remembers and synchronises books across Kindle devices. So, read a book on the Kindle ebook reader, then open it using the Kindle app for Android and it will open at the same page. This is certainly a neat feature and makes enjoying a book easy and seamless.

After the monochrome interface on the Kindle, it was nice to see a bit of colour on the Kindle for Android. Buying books and navigating around certainly benefited from a touchscreen and colour display. However, reading books on a backlit smartphone or tablet screen is far more taxing on the eyes.

Moving between pages was easy; tapping the left-hand side of the screen turned back a page and tapping on the right went forward a page. Holding down on a word displayed its definition, but only once we'd downloaded the free dictionary.

Tapping in the middle of the screen displayed some basic information about the book, including its title, the chapter and location.

Pressing the menu button on a smartphone or tablet displays various useful options. The best of which was changing the font size, especially useful on smartphones to get more text on a smaller screen.

We could also change the background colour to sepia or black (with white text) for easier reading. Sepia felt slightly more comfortable than the brightness of white and made reading for prolonged periods a lot more comfortable for our eyes. The bookmark and ‘go to' feature were also welcome additions.

For people who already own a Kindle, this is a great addition for no additional cost. Also, as a way of reading the thousands of free books available on the Kindle store, it is a bit of a no-brainer. A very good ereader app, but the backlit screen is an unavoidable eye-ache.

To download Kindle for Android, scan the QR code below (you'll need a barcode scanner app to do so, click here for details).