I recently got a hand-me-down Android tablet (an older Kindle Fire) and am looking for a decent ebook reader app that handles ePubs, either downloaded or sideloaded. On iOS I use the Kobo app, but this device is old enough that's not supported/available. Most of the half dozen I've tried at random are ... not optimal, either ad-ridden or buggy.
Any recommendations? TIA
Freda (turnipsoft.com) may be the best option. With v5, Jim Chapman removed the ads last year, so it's even better.
It also can connect to your calibre server.
An old version (with ads) is also available Amazon store.
I stopped using Freda a long time ago, because it crashed too often and had problems with modern files. But it seems to have improved.
If all else fail, maybe stick to a browser based reader like:
play.google.com/books
It actually is very good.
There is also an open source electron based standard developed by edrlab.org, they do not have an android port, but provide the technology for their partner like Vivlio and others publishers. Any reader based on that is sure to be very compatible, but maybe too slow for an old Kindle Fire.
I've seen Freda rec'd for PC, so I tried it. Man, it's a total slug though (reviews bring this up a lot). Unstable, too — it crashed three times loading two test books. The rendering of images and PDF pages is butt-fugly pixelated.
So yeah, no. Thanks anyway.
Evie. The developer has built an excellent product, listens to suggestions and complaints, and is quick to respond. I use it daily. You can find it on the Play store, or here : https://evoicereader.com/
Did you try the provided link? You can download directly from that site, on Android. I do not believe Evie is available for ios, if that is what you are using.
Yes, Evie, the eVoice reader by Alfred Faltiska. The app design is a white square with a red book inside, pages open, resting above a black "pulse" line.
Ah — the reason it didn't show up in Play is that my device is old enough, it's not compatible. Oh well.
Thanks for responding regardless.
Sorry, told a lie. I haven't used my tablet for a long while. The app I use on the tablet is "ReadEra" which has a free version and a Premium version. I use the Free version and it gives a very good page display which is very similar to the Calibre ebook viewer with the side swipes etc.
Sorry for the mistake.
No worries — I'll give it a try.
ETA: Okay, overall pretty good if a bit slow, but there's some wonky rendering: it looks like it doesn't handle the text alignment of text inside a div and (I think) a td, unless it's also wrapped in a paragraph tag. And a lot of things that aren't straight-up plain text use those for layout. It's otherwise pretty good and I'll keep it for now, but …
Thanks for the rec.
I use @Voice on my Android phone constantly. Went to it when Amazon botched their TTS feature. It's gotten to where I mostly just listen to books at 1.4 speed. I don't know about getting it on a Fire tablet, but it's great on a phone. It is in the Play store.
Getting Play on the Fire was pretty easy. I'll check that out. (Though I won't use the voice part — I don't really get along with audiobooks.)
Ooch—this was slow, kept jumping to a different heading than the one I tried to go to via TOC, and I couldn't find the setting to not read aloud by default. Not gonna work for me.
Thanks anyway.
Hmmm... Haven't had the TOC problem. And the version on my Android has a setting under >speech>start for "Start taking at once." Again, I'm using on a daily current Android phone. Maybe that makes a difference?
It may well. Tried changing that setting for start talking at once, but it didn't seem to work/stick. Hmph!
So far, I'm liking best the free version of Lithium and an open-source app called Book Reader. They're on the light side when it comes to library tools, but that's fine for me given this will never be my primary ereader (it's not e-ink). For book reading, they're both fast and render formatting like I expect.
If anyone has other suggestions, feel free to offer.
I have used FBReader for years, have had no problems. Android 5 and up.
https://developer.amazon.com/apps-and-games/fire-tablets
Fire OS is the operating system that runs Amazon Fire TV and tablet devices. Fire OS is a fork of Android, so if your app runs on Android, it will most likely run on Amazon Fire devices, too.
Yeah, that "most likely" qualification seems kind of important. Particularly with an older fire tablet. You would need to make sure you are getting versions of apps meant for the right version of Android.
Even with a straight Android device, I'm not sure you can count on the versions of apps currently available in the play store running on an old version of Android.
Even with a straight Android device, I'm not sure you can count on the versions of apps currently available in the play store running on an old version of Android.
App developers can choose how far back they want to support - but apparently Android 14 refuses to install apps that support as far back as Android 5. An app's page on Google Play Store contains info about supported Android versions.