Black Friday sales officially start Friday, November 28, and run through Cyber Monday, December 1, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it’s over. 

• Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find.

• Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more.

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• Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change. 

If you’re anything like me, you probably spend your whole workday looking at screens, only to go home and immediately turn on more screens to relax. I get it, but by the end of the day, that can be pretty hard on your eyes. That’s why I recommend getting an e-reader. These devices have the same instant access to content as more traditional screens, but use special e-ink displays with actual ink instead of LEDs, for a more relaxing and paper-like experience.

You’re probably familiar with Kindles, but these days, there are plenty of e-readers out there, and Amazon’s may not be the best for you. Here are the best e-reader deals this Black Friday, across black-and-white devices, color devices, Androids, and even e-readers that are shaped like phones.

Best Kindles and Kobos

If you want an e-reader with a snappy interface that will just take you directly to either a storefront or your books, then Amazon’s black-and-white Kindles and Rakuten’s black-and-white Kobos are probably your best bet. You can still read your own files and even library books on these devices, but they don’t have the same varied library of apps that you might expect from a phone or iPad. Still, they’re probably the simplest option for most people, and the best for reading more traditional content like novels.

There are a few different varieties of Kindle, with the base model now discounted down to $80 for Black Friday. This model has a 6-inch screen, an adjustable light, and 16GB of storage, but cuts out some bonuses like waterproofing or an adjustable color temperature. It also displays ads on the lockscreen, or you can opt for this $100 deal instead to remove them.

If you want to snag those extra bonuses, you can get the Kindle Paperwhite instead. Currently starting at $125, it bumps the screen up to 7 inches and adds in that adjustable color temperature and waterproofing. Like with the base Kindle, if you don’t want ads on your lockscreen, you’ll need to get this $145 deal instead.

For Amazon’s most premium black-and-white e-reader, you’ll want the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition. This is $150 and has all the same benefits as the standard Paperwhite, but increases the storage to 32GB, adds in support for wireless charging, and has a sensor for adjusting the brightness automatically. It also doesn’t include ads by default, and for $5 more than a regular ad-free Paperwhite, is probably worth the upgrade.

There are also kids versions of both the standard Kindle and the Paperwhite, with identical hardware. The difference is that these come with six free months of Amazon Kids+, and cost somewhere in between the regular version and an adult ad-free version ($95 for the base Kindle Kids and $135 for the Paperwhite Kids). They also don’t have ads when using a kids’ profile, although some users have complained about ads on adult profiles.

Finally, for Rakuten devices, only one black-and-white e-reader is on sale right now. That’s the Kobo Elipsa 2E. At $350 and 10.3-inches large, it’s somewhere between an e-reader and a digital notebook. It has 32GB of storage and a front light with adjustable color temperature, plus comes with a stylus and a few templates to make simple notes that you can upload to Google Drive. The note-taking experience here isn’t quite as robust as you’ll find on Android devices or on devices like the Remarkable Paper Pro, which is why I feel comfortable calling it more of an e-reader than a digital notebook, but you can sync your notes to the cloud if you’d like, including either Kobo’s own cloud storage or your Dropbox or Google Drive. Personally, I find this device is best used for reading large-format books and occasionally marking them up in the margins, which could justify the higher price tag for some users. The flip side is that, if you just want to use it to read, it’ll be just as intuitive as any Kindle.

Best color e-readers

Color e-readers are a bit more of a recent invention. They might sound like a simple upgrade, but truth be told, they’re not for everyone. That’s because the color filter they use to achieve their effect can make text look a bit less sharp, and can add a distracting sparkle to even black-and-white content. They also aren’t too vibrant when displaying color content. But if you want to read the occasional picture book or comic, they can be a fun way to get a more paper-like experience digitally than you would get on a tablet like an iPad. Just know that they may not be the best choice for dedicated novel readers.

The best color image on the market right now probably belongs to the Kindle Colorsoft, and while it used to be pretty expensive, it now comes in two different models. The standard version is currently selling for $170, and comes with 16GB of storage and all the same benefits as the base Kindle Paperwhite (a 7-inch screen, waterproofing, and a front light with an adjustable color temperature). It’s also ad-free by default.

The Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition, meanwhile, will run you $230. It increases the storage to 32GB, adds in wireless charging, and gives the front light the ability to adjust brightness automatically. That’s a pretty heavy premium on features some users will probably ignore entirely, but since color content can be a bit larger than black-and-white content (especially comics), it might be worth it depending on what you read.

In testing, I found the Kindle Colorsoft had higher contrast than other color e-readers I’ve tried, generally producing a more paper-like image. The high price initially threw me off recommending it to most readers, but the new, cheaper model and these Black Friday deals help to make it a more attractive buy.

That said, if you’d like a color reader that isn’t from Amazon, the Kobo Libra Colour is also on sale this Black Friday. It’ll run you $200, which is somewhere between the base Kindle Colorsoft and the Signature Edition. For that price, you’ll get a 7-inch screen, a front light with an adjustable color temperature, 32GB of storage, waterproofing, and a built-in grip with page turn buttons. You could even buy a stylus to use with the same note-taking apps as on the Elipsa 2E, although they might be a little less useful on such a small screen.

I generally found the Libra Colour’s image quality was a bit worse than the Colorsoft’s, but that extra storage and those page turn buttons are nice for the cost, and it doesn’t look too much worse.

Best Android e-readers

Android E-Readers tend to come from smaller companies, and are great for their versatility. Because they have access to the same kind of apps you’d use on a smartphone, you can use them to read Kindle books, browse the internet, load up PDFs on their own, or even log into comic apps from the likes of Marvel and DC. The downside is that they can be a little slower to use than Kindle or Kobo devices, because Android is a heavier operating system, and because these apps typically expect you to have a more responsive screen than you’ll get on an e-reader.

This Black Friday, I’ve found two book-sized Android e-readers on sale, both of which are in color and come from a company called Bigme.

The more affordable one is the Bigme B751C, which is currently $245. It has a 7-inch screen with an adjustable color temperature and a grip with page turn buttons on the left-hand side. Storage is an impressive 64GB, and RAM is 4GB, which will be important for navigating Android. You’ll be on a slightly older version of Android here—Android 11—which my colleague Joel Cunningham said was “jammed with bloatware” in his review of this device. Still, he appreciated that you can actually adjust the refresh rate to make the e-ink screen work a little better with Android apps, and the openness of Android meant he’d still choose it over a Kindle Colorsoft.

For $279, you could instead upgrade to the more recent Bigme B7, which increases the RAM to 8GB and the storage to 128GB. It also comes with Android 14, and overall, should give you a snappier experience. There’s also a 5MP camera, which could be useful for scanning in PDFs, and an included stylus that charges wireless when magnetically attached to the right side of the device.

Best phone-sized e-readers

Finally, there are e-readers that are shaped like smartphones. These also run Android, and aim for a more pocketable form factor. They’re great for one-handed reading, and could be useful for scrolling social media more intently. I wouldn’t use them for a whole book, but they could be a good alternative to endlessly doomscrolling on your phone.

The Boox Palma 2 is the favorite in this field, and will currently run you $270. It’s got a 6.13-inch black-and-white screen in a smartphone-like aspect ratio, and its front light supports both warm and cool color temperatures. You’ll get 6GB of RAM here, plus 128GB of storage and Android 13 pre-installed. There is a 16MP camera for scanning documents, a fingerprint sensor, and even a light sensor like on Amazon’s more expensive Kindles.

Alternatively, if you’re big on AI, you could opt for the Viwoods AiPaper Reader, which is currently selling for $238. This also has a 6.13-inch black-and-white screen, but has a bit less RAM than the Boox Palma, at 4GB rather than 6GB. It also lacks a camera, but does support 4G if you insert a SIM card. Probably the biggest missing feature here is a color adjustable light, but there’s still a fingerprint reader. The big selling point is the built-in AI for answering questions about whatever you’re reading on the fly, although I can’t help but feel that goes against the more intentional, less connected selling point of an e-reader.

Best digital notebooks

While a few of the devices in this article could be used as digital notebooks on the fly, only the Elipsa 2E is really intended as one, and even then, I do feel like its features are lacking compared to other options. Luckily, if you want to use an e-ink screen for writing in addition to reading, my colleague Joel Cunningham’s list of the best Black Friday deals on digital notebooks has you covered.

Does Amazon have Black Friday deals?

Yes, Amazon has Black Friday sales, but prices aren’t always what they seem. Use a price tracker to make sure you’re getting the best deal, or refer to guides like our live blog that use price trackers for you. And if you have an Amazon Prime membership, make the most of it.

What stores have the best sales on Black Friday?

Nowadays, both large retailers and small businesses compete for Black Friday shoppers, so you can expect practically every store to run sales through Monday, December 1, 2025. The “best” sales depend on your needs, but in general, the biggest discounts tend to come from larger retailers that can afford lower prices: think places like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and Home Depot. You can find all the best sales from major retailers on our live blog. 

How long do Black Friday deals really last?

Black Friday sales officially begin Friday, November 28, 2025, and run throughout “Cyber Week,” the five-day period that runs from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, December 1, 2025. But Black Friday and Cyber Monday dates have expanded as retailers compete for customers. You can get the same Black Friday sales early, and we expect sales to wind down by December 3, 2025.