Adobe Digital Editions

Adobe Digital Editions is a productivity app for reading eBooks and other documents conveniently, both online and offline. You can download Adobe Digital Editions from Google Play and the App Store.

Functionality 4/5

Adobe Digital Editions was made for viewing and reading your EPUB and PDF books on your device regardless of your internet connection. ADE has a feature for borrowing eBooks from an extensive list of public libraries. With this app, you can transfer your eBooks from other devices such as your personal computer to your mobile device. You can neatly manage and organize your eBooks by putting together a beautiful custom library.

Design 3/5

This application has a simple yet welcoming and intuitive design. However, that’s all there is to the layout, considering what you get to see on your screen when reading a book, is the content of the publication. A brown theme characterized by a cool color contrast gives the interface a tranquil personality. However, a lot of design elements seem quite outdated and call for a revamp.

Usability 2/5

It is worth pointing out in this Adobe Digital Editions review that the application fails miserably in providing efficiency when reading EPUB and PDF files. You might try to open an Adobe DRM eBook, and it won’t load. The app might go unresponsive when trying to perform crucial functions such as flipping pages. Another serious issue is that ADE occasionally fails to read your device memory. This means you cannot access files saved on your device.

One core functionality of the app should be the ability to sync with other devices, but this doesn’t work either. In case you successfully load a book, the app will jump between pages as you are reading, often backward. It is irritating that proper readability is impossible on some devices; the app just won’t let you zoom in close enough. Downloading a book is another issue. If you are lucky enough to download a book successfully, you can be certain that you won’t see it in the app. All this comes down to one thing — the app does not offer what it claims to.

Cross-Platform Use 4/5

Adobe Digital Editions deserves a decent rating when it comes to cross-platform usability as it is available on iOS and Android devices. Windows users can only use a PC version of the app since there is no version for Windows mobile. Further digging into OS requirements, iDevices (iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch) must be running on iOS 8.0 and upwards. As to Android, the OS version of your device must be 4.4 or later.

In-App Purchases

Adobe Digital Editions is a free-to-use app. There are no hidden costs for accessing core features. You can be certain of this one thing — you will not be prompted to make subscriptions, donations or payments for app content. It would be understandable if you needed to pay for all books borrowed from libraries, but in only a few occasions are you required to do so. After all, ADE is not a provider of such third-party services.

The Bottom Line

If you download Adobe Digital Editions, you need to know that its efficient performance is a matter of chance. ADE’s usability is not guaranteed unless the developers look into this issue. That said, you can borrow eBook resources from major libraries right in the app. Whether or not you have an active Internet connection, you still can read eBooks that are already on your device offline. If the app manages to load them from your device memory, that is.