Amazon has told owners it will soon stop supporting older Kindle models - a move which has left some users outraged.
In emails from the tech giant, affected users were thanked for being a “longtime Kindle customer” but told devices released during or before 2012 would no longer receive updates from 20 May.
The move will mean owners of older Kindles, including its earliest models such as the Kindle Touch and some Kindle Fire tablets, will be unable to download new e-books.
Amazon said it has supported affected models for years and their active users have been offered discounts to help “transition to newer devices”, but some have criticised it for making up to two million devices “obsolete”.
“I have a Kindle Touch that I’ve had since 2013, it works great, I bought a book on it a few months ago, and suddenly it’s obsolete,” one X user wrote in a post tagging Amazon.
Older kindles can and should be jailbroken.
Removing DRM is likely completely legal.
* is definitely legal in most of the world
That said, if anyone has better suggestions for a reader that doesn’t involve giving money to a shitty company like Amazon, this would be a great place to post them!
Kobo seems.to always get good reviews
I have a Kobo Clara 2E and like it very much.
I love my Kobo Libra Color. I got it to replace my Kindle Oasis, and it has the same basic form factor. I wanted the KLC because I read a lot of manga and webcomics, and can sync them directly from my Calibre server.
My only real complaint is the lack of expandability. 32GB is fine for ebooks, because text takes basically no storage space. But comics (basically images organized together in a zip archive) and audiobooks quickly eat that storage space. If it included a microSD slot, that would greatly expand how long I can go between syncs. For a device that released in 2024, only including 32GB of on-board storage is an interesting choice.
My only guess is that it doesn’t have an SD card slot because it is IPX8 rated. I know it’s technically possible to IP rate an SD card slot, but I have no idea how easy it is. Older (black and white) Libra models used an internal SD card reader. You could crack the case open with a few screws and upgrade the storage very easily. But the Libra Color uses soldered eMMC, so upgrading the storage is a no-go.
I recently got one of my kids a Kobo Clara Colour and it’s great! The Clara is the smaller sized screen, they have a normal sized model as well.
Two awesome things. One, can borrow from Libby directly. Two, with a small edit to a file on the Kobo, you can sync it to Calibre Web so all those books appear magically as books in your account on the Kobo for wireless browsing and downloading!
So if there’s something my kid wants but can’t find on Libby, I can add it in Calibre Web for them.
I have the Libra 2 and love it. Nice thumb rail with page-turning buttons. Doesn’t need jailbreaking to install KOReader or do whatever else I want.
Pocketbook makes nice e readers too! Issue then is mostly with getting books, especially non-drm ones
I recently got a Boox Go Color and really enjoy it. The nice thing is that it runs Android so can benefit from the app ecosystem.
It would probably take a lot of work to make like a wizard for low tech people to use for jailbreaking, right? A relative has brain damage and used to be tech savvy but now gets uneasy about things like that. I could jailbreak it for her, specifically, but I keep thinking about people in her situation who were early adopters of ebooks and would love to keep using the same device but can’t do steps like that anymore.
Sorry I asked this on your helpful comment! It just made me think of that kindle using relative. I second using that wiki and removing drm from all your books.
It is possible but way beyond my ability. I suspect it would be a pretty complex task because it requires keys to be obtained from Amazon, and the process is often a little different for each of the many many versions of the Kindle. Most people would need a tech-capable helper to do it for them.
Honestly, there should be a law requiring software unlocking for any manufacturer-abandoned hardware.
Oo trying this today, thanks!