Inside Look: Features and Performance Battle of Google Play Books versus Kindle eReaders

Google Play Books VS Kindle in-Depth Comparison

Posted by Ada Wang on 6/20/2019 2:29:33 PM.

I have found on many forums people post to seek suggestions about selecting google play books or kindle. At the same time, warm-hearted persons reply to the post with various opinions. They maybe just reply in their own perspective. And people may still get confused and can’t get their problems solved or make a right decision after reading these replies. That’s why I’m writing this article google play books vs kindle.

In this article, I will make a comprehensive comparison between google play books and kindle from three aspects: basic information about these two kinds of books; devices and apps for buying and reading them; range of books on each purchasing platform. Surely you can gain a great knowledge of these two kinds of books and make a better choice after reading this guide.

Basic information about google play books and kindle books

First I will list the basic information about the formats and drm these two kinds of books support and their purchasing platforms. You can have a clear knowledge about it.

From the above table, we can see these two kinds of books support different formats and drm. Before buying them, make sure you have the right devices to read them.

Devices and apps for buying and reading them

1Comparison between devices for buying and reading these two kinds of books

1. Analyzing from the number of popular devices that support the native purchasing and reading of these two kinds of books, google play books obviously gain the upper hand. For Google play books support epub and pdf formats which are quite common and accessible on various other devices, such as nook, sony, kobo, etc. Besides, google play books are protected by Adobe drm just like many other kinds of books. So if you choose to buy google play books, there is no problem for you to read them freely on the above-mentioned devices. That’s really convenient.

On the contrary, kindle books mainly support kfx, azw, azw3 and mobi formats which are incompatible with other devices. Even if you have converted the file formats to epub or pdf, you have to consider another problem- kindle drm protection, which sets up another obstacle for you to read kindle books on other popular devices.

2. From the systems these two kinds of books are accessed on, kindle books win the competition. If you buy kindle books you can read them on virtually any system, i.e. even windows rt. Whereas with Google Play Books you are tied to primarily android.

2Google play books app vs Kindle app

Google play app and kindle app make it possible for you to read them on some incompatible devices which allow reading apps, such as to read google play books on kindle fire, read kindle books on nook HD, koboarc or iPad.

The following are some user reading experience about these two reading apps.

1. With kindle you can use it on many devices, phone, tablet, pc, etc. You can send a kindle file of your book to a reviewer or whoever, but you can’t do that with google books.

2. In kindle app you can download the dictionary and look-up words when reading without having to leave the app or even the page you’re on.

3. There are many websites where you can download free books in your kindle app(there are several formats).You don’t have to get everything directly from Amazon in order to read it on Kindle app. Google Books does not allow us to do that.

4. Though the kindle apps are disgraceful, they are available on nearly every platform.

5. Google Play has the page curl animation while kindle is a straight sliding motion.

6. You can change the font, and the openness to read all kinds of ebooks in google play books app.

7. Google play books app allows no option to auto download books. Unless you pin the added books, it starts to save the entire books to your device.

With the corresponding reading apps installed in your tablet, you don’t need to remove drm or convert file formats while reading these two kinds of books. However, if you want all your books in one place or you don’t want to install such reading app, you can choose to strip drm and convert the file format to the target format by using this tool Epubor Ultimate . It helps you remove drm as well as convert formats.

Download the tool for free:

Google Play vs Amazon

Google play and Amazon are two of the biggest e-reader manufacturers and ebook sellers. They both own their advantages and disadvantages. Here I will make a general comparison between amazon and google play.

1Amazon ebookstore vs Google Play

1. Quantity and price of ebooks

Amazon covers more ebooks and usually with cheaper price.

2. Feature

Amazon has the most new author and indie author free and 99 cent ebooks. It includes sales rankings for any books while Google Play doesn’t provide such sales rankings. Their bestseller page is the only indication of how well a book is doing.

2Amazon appstore vs Google Play

1. Selection of apps

Google Play has more than 600,000 apps, while Amazon App Store provides only about 47,000 apps.

Amazon offers over 100,000 choices of TV shows and movies, whereas Google Play claims that it covers “thousands” of movies and TV shows. About this aspect, they are on the same level.

However, the Amazon App Store owns no notable exclusive content while Google Play does. Though a lot of mainstream Android apps are available in both appstores, thare are still many famous apps you can only find in Google Play, such as Instagram and Hulu Plus.

2. Purchasing channel

All that you buy through Google (apps, music, magazines, movies/TV, books) is available through the one Google Play store. Amazon, in contrast, is not that convenient. You can only purchase books or magazines through its kindle store. For music, movies, TV shows, you have to go to the Instant Video store.

3. Benefits and service

Amazon provides its customers a diverse apps for free every day. Besides, customers are permitted to try out some apps for free in their web browser to check out whether the apps are the ones they need.

Google lets customers have 30- or 14-day trials when subscribing to magazines. Similar to this, it also allows users to have a free one-time listen of a song.

Google allows users to return the apps for a refund in 15 minutes after they purchasing it. For Amazon customers, they can contact the customer service to get a refund if they are not satisfied with the apps purchased from Amazon.

In conclusion, you can make a right decision about choosing Google Play books or kindle according to the above listed user experiences and their own advantages and disadvantages.

Bonus Tips: If you want to make the full use of Google Play books, you should never miss the ultimate guide–Google Play 101: 16 Golden Tips and Tricks You Must Know .

![author](https://www.epubor.com/images/uppic/1-22-2013 12-03-06 AM.png)

Ada Wang works for Epubor and writes articles for a collection of blogs such as ebookconverter.blogspot.com.

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15 Comments

Tom

Re:Google Play Books VS Kindle

02/5/2015 11:16:45

A couple of points that seem to have been overlooked:
- Google books app has different display modes, including white text on black, which is good for night reading without disturbing anyone
- Google books app has adjustable brightness. Kindle app doesn’t (at least on Android)
- Google books app will scale the drawings and diagrams when the page is scaled. This is more flexible and convenient than Kindles method, which requires selecting and choosing magnification, which only magnifies a fixed amount, and outside the context of the page. This is a big issue for technical ebooks.
- Amazon also has a time limit that allows you to “unbuy” book purchased by accident.
- You can change text size on Kindle, but it’s more limited

Epubor

Re:Tom

02/5/2015 19:54:16

Hi,

Thank you for your comment. This will help people who read this article a lot.

Cody

Re:Tom

04/9/2015 18:14:29

Kindle has adjustable brightness too and the black background with white text. Pretty sure both were there from the beginning.

Paul

Re:Google Play Books VS Kindle

03/25/2015 17:26:01

Google Play also has an on screen dictionary, I’m not sure if you had not noticed or if it has been added since this review, the dictionary has to be downloaded before it is functional though. Also on the Google Play app it has a “read aloud” option which means you can listen to a book like it’s an audio book which can be quite handy. Kindle has this option on their Kindle tablets, but it does not have it on its app.

MARIA LUCILA LARRE CHAVEZ

Re:Paul

08/12/2017 01:54:03

In Kinle I have no trouble switching languages and dictionaires. In Google Books, at least in my Android I only have dictionaire in English. If I am reading something in Spanish or French I must change everything in my telephone.

hdh

Re:Google Play Books VS Kindle

04/18/2015 06:02:43

Google sucks

rakhi

Re:Google Play Books VS Kindle

10/1/2015 05:40:06

which is good for a new author?

gogo

Re:Google Play Books VS Kindle

01/10/2016 05:23:01

Kindle is a clear winner here because Kindle books can be displayed on a Kindle device… offering a more book-like experience and using much less power than a battery-eating smartphone or tablet. Until battery technology improves smartphones will also be a pants option.

Ken

Re:Google Play Books VS Kindle

11/5/2017 07:32:20

what a waste of time…I want to know the difference between the apps….storing books on SD card; being able to jump between locations and get back to where I was…bookmarking and returning…searching within context. Basically stuff a serious study would be able to do within a real book.

Deb

Re:Ken

05/15/2019 10:34:08

You can’t save your books to an SD card.

Re:Google Play Books VS Kindle

02/27/2018 12:46:06

there is google play book app for IOS and you can read google play book with internet browser when using computer

Re:Google Play Books VS Kindle

03/24/2018 19:18:40

Kindle page curl is much nicer. Both apps have similar customization. Kindle is a little nicer - allows margin control and better fonts.

Kindle is for your reading only. Google allows sharing in a family of 5 people. A hands down winner.

Eric

Re:Google Play Books VS Kindle

05/18/2018 10:36:36

Kindle has more options. It goes between pages and bookmarks better.

I noticed that Tom said that kindle didn’t have in book adjustable
brightness, this is wrong. You can adjust the brightness, font size, line
spacing, margins, and colors inside the book. It has white on black, black
on white, sepia, and green.

And I have never seen an audiobook on Google Books cheaper than Kindle. You
have to purchase the audiobook seperatly on Google. You can upgrade on
Kindle Fire a discounted price.

hmm

Re:Google Play Books VS Kindle

02/24/2020 08:18:32

Strange decision to compare Google Play to Amazon App Store in a discussion about books, it’s off-topic.

One thing that Kindle has is the “send to kindle” email address system - each device that you have a Kindle app on has an email address you can use to send ebooks and PDFs etc to the device, which are converted to the appropriate format if needed. It allows Kindle to incorporate books and articles from elsewhere and provide a more comprehensive reading platform. A number of browser extensions are set up to make this process easier, so you can send articles and free ebooks to Kindle with a click of a button.

Hale

Re:Google Play Books VS Kindle

11/2/2021 21:22:36

If a book has a colored illustration will either the Kindle or Google Play Books display it the same way too? Or will it become black and white?

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Inside Look: Features and Performance Battle of Google Play Books versus Kindle eReaders