GADGET GIZMO SPECIAL How to turn your smartphone into an e-book reader

If you want to gain access to e-books without investing in an e-book reader, you can use your existing smartphone or tablet to get started.
Access e-books from your mobile device for free

e-Books are available on all mobile operating systems. Download these applications from your app store (BlackBerry App World, Google e-books, iOS iBooks) to get the optimum reading experience on your existing device. 

Android
Aldiko Book Reader supports ePub and PDF formats on Android. It allows you to sort books via tags and displays them in a bookshelfstyle interface. You can adjust the font size, type, alignment, background colour and switch to night reading mode. You can buy e-books from the app. The free version is fully functional (ad supported).
Blackberry
While free cross-platform apps like the Kindle are available for BlackBerry, it does not have a free BB reading app. So, you can download the PlayEpub Book Reader for Rs 50. This app works with ePub, Mobi and PDF formats. You can read text in portrait and landscape modes, as well as sort books. It offers a full file browser and supports compressed files. You can choose the font size, brightness and switch between day and night modes.
iOS
iBooks is Apple's free reader app. It has a streamlined interface and lets you download books directly from the iBooks store. The app offers 10 font styles, three page layout options, and three colours to customise the view. It supports ePub and PDF formats in 18 different languages and keeps your books in sync with other iOS devices via Apple's iCloud. It also has builtin search, bookmarking and AirPrint support.
Windows Phone
With Legimi e-Book Reader you can store books on your device as well as access those on OneDrive cloud storage. You can customise fonts, format and bookmark a page. It allows you to change the orientation and also offers night mode reading. You can save quotes from books to share on social networking sites. 

Cross- platform applications
There are a number of free e-book reading apps available across mobile operating systems. The apps we recommend include Kindle, Kobo, Wattpad, Nook and Calibre. These apps allow you to customise font size, brightness and various other display settings for optimum reading experience. Moreover, they have their own built-in e-book stores. You simply have to sign in and download the free and paid books on the device.
Less known facts about e-books

1. On 3G Kindles, the cost of 3G is built into the price. There are no download limits and no recurring costs. You can use your 3G connection to download books from across the world.

2. You can read colour magazines for free. For instance, Zinio has a large collection of free magazines. The other sites from where you can access free magazines are www.turnit.com and http://free.yudu.com.

3. If you search 'e-book' on any app store, it will get you several free books that work as standalone apps. Once you have read it, uninstall the app and hunt for the next one.

4. When you read e-books on a mobile device with an LCD screen, reduce the brightness. You can swap the text and background colour for better reading experience.

5. Most e-book readers and apps allows you to read PDF, ePub and Mobi files. If you have any of these file formats, you simply have to transfer them to your device and they will appear in your books library.

6. All Kindles offer an easy way to transfer files. Head to www.amazon. com/myk to find out your device's e-mail ID. Send files to the ID and they appear automatically on your device.

7. Monochrome e-book readers use low-power e-ink displays. However, all e-ink displays are not equal. Some offer a higher resolution and display more shades of grey (better for images).

8. e-ink looks like paper but you cannot read the content in the dark. External lights don't light up the screen evenly and this explains why innovations, such as front lights, were necessary. 

By Karan Bajaj & Hitesh Raj Bhagat, ET 140922