Shopping for a new Kindle this Christmas? The 3 best options explained

If you're shopping for the best Kindle – either for yourself or to give as a gift to someone else – then it may take you some time to pick between the various options offered by Amazon. There are more Kindle variations than you might expect, and the differences between them aren't always easy to pick out or understand.

To help make your purchasing decision straightforward, I've picked out three top recommendations from the Amazon e-readers. After a couple of decades writing about tech, I've tested and used a lot of the Kindle models over the years – right back to the first Kindle in 2007 (coincidentally also the year of the very first iPhone).

This may be a short list of recommendations, but you'll find I've covered the different price points and the different device requirements that most people are going to be shopping for. With numerous models to choose from, it's important that you get the best Kindle for your specific needs – and budget.

T3's top picks

Pricing

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite

The Paperwhite remains significantly more expensive than the standard Kindle – there's no getting away from that – but it remains competitively priced when weighed against other e-readers and tablets on the market at the moment. It's also worth bearing in mind that Amazon will often reduces the price of the Paperwhite, so watch out for special deals – such as Boxing Day sales.

Amazon Kindle

As with the Paperwhite, you'll often find the standard Kindle on offer at Amazon throughout the year too. Price-wise, it's not quite cheap enough to be an impulse buy, but it is one of the best-value pieces of tech you'll find these days – the smaller size, the monochrome screen, and the plastic casing all help in keeping the cost of a Kindle low. You can buy one with adverts for even less, too.

Kobo Libra Colour

While the Kobo Libra Colour is the most expensive e-reader in this list, it's also cheaper than the colour options in the Kindle series, so it's well worth considering if you want to go beyond greyscale with your digital reading – but you don't want to pay over the odds. Its recommended retail price isn't that much more than what you pay for the Paperwhite.

Which wins?

The standard Amazon Kindle is my pick for the best Kindle for most people at the moment, and our Amazon Kindle review will give you reasons why: we describe it as an "affordable wonder". It's the most basic model, but it also covers all of the basics brilliantly, at a low price.

This e-reader gives you storage space for thousands of e-books, up to six weeks of battery life, and a crisp 6-inch, glare-free screen (running at 300 dots-per-inch; the same resolution as the Kindle Paperwhite, by the way). When you're picking the best Kindle, you have to seriously ask yourself whether paying more for a different model can actually be justified.

That's not to say the Kindle Paperwhite isn't worth it for a lot of people willing to pay a bit extra, who want the screen illumination that the base Kindle lacks. The screenalso sits flush against the casing on this model, plus it's also a physically bigger display, with the option to adjust its warmth too. Double the battery life and waterproofing are more reasons to want to pick this up.

Then there's the Kobo Libra Colour, one of the cheapest colour e-readers you're going to find at the moment (though more expensive than the Kindle and the Paperwhite). Kobo can definitely hold its own against the Amazon models when it comes to build quality and features, and you get a gorgeous 7-inch display and stylus support if you go for this option.

Other options?

It would be remiss of me not to also mention the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, a more premium version of the standard Paperwhite that brings with it more storage, wireless charging support, and an auto-adjusting front light sensor. It's not actually that much more expensive than the regular Kindle Paperwhite model, either.

There's also the Amazon Kindle Colorsoft, of course, if you want a colour screen and also want to stick with the Kindle brand. It's more expensive than the Kobo equivalent, but it does the job very nicely indeed, and comes with waterproofing and an adjustable warm light. The device comes with 32GB of internal storage and up to eight weeks of battery life.