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A_D_E_P_T 1 days ago [-]
Amazon's attitude towards its Kindle device customers is one of lofty disregard.
Every time they announce new Kindle products, half of the comments are like "I hope they have buttons," "I hope they bring back the Oasis," etc.
But they appear to exult in dashing the hopes of their customers, or at the very least they don't care about them at all. They've doubled down on no-key devices with stupid pens, pointless and poorly-implemented color, and tiny or excessively large form factors with little in between. It's kind of crazy just how much they don't seem to care.
The subtext of the article indicates that the problem isn't discontinuing support alone, but discontinuing support without offering those customers a reasonable replacement for their old devices that had keys and buttons. (Even if it's just a couple of buttons.)
Aloha 16 hours ago [-]
14 years of support for a device is pretty incredible.
al_borland 15 hours ago [-]
It seems they’ve gone out of their want to make them useless. They could have ended official support, while still allowing users to download ebooks from the store and side loading them through a computer. However, before killing support, they eliminated the ability to download ebooks to the computer.
ladyanita22 6 hours ago [-]
But you can still sideload them, right?
swiftcoder 3 hours ago [-]
If you don't allow the device to connect to the internet, yes. Kindles are somewhat infamous for updates that wipe storage if they think you are side loading pirate ebooks
delecti 2 hours ago [-]
> Kindles are somewhat infamous for updates that wipe storage if they think you are side loading pirate ebooks
Source? I've never heard of this, and I used to work there, including building the OS from source (though my contributions to the OS were pretty minimal). If you just put a .mobi file onto the storage, how does it have any idea where it came from?
> If you don't allow the device to connect to the internet, yes
Why is that a problem for a device which has been EoL'd?
e28eta 16 hours ago [-]
I don’t know how I feel about it. I’ve been on one side, looking at usage numbers of older iOS versions, and arguing that low single digit percentages were fine to stop supporting with the new version.
On the other hand, I view my kindle as an appliance, and I don’t need it to have updated functionality. I think this is true of many electronics: digital cameras, printers, misc USB peripherals, etc. I believe Amazon could easily support the APIs it uses, and keep delivering me books that I’ve paid for or borrowed.
Financially, I suspect the kindle devices have a much longer lifetime than iPhones do, and Amazon is still making $$ off of old kindles.
If there were TLS concerns, a partial disablement (ex: can’t buy books from the device) would be way more acceptable than a complete cutoff. I’ve seen suggestions that it’s a DRM issue, and if that’s the primary motivation, it’s pretty disappointing.
Aloha 14 hours ago [-]
I'm supporting a 30 year old product, the oldest one in the field are 20+ years old, we still support them.
I'm just in the process of developing a lifecycle policy, being able to cut off support for a 12 year systems would make my life much more full of joy.
_doctor_love 13 hours ago [-]
(This may be a very ungenerous reading of your comment, so my apologies if this is not what you mean.)
The phrase that jumps out at me is:
> being able to cut off support for a 12 year systems would make my life much more full of joy
I think this is a nearly-poetical capturing of the core problem.
The focus is on the joy and well-being of the maintainer, not the impact to all the people who will be impacted by this change. Possibly some people rely on these devices and it adversely impact their joy and livelihood when support is ended.
This happens over and over again in tech.
andrekandre 11 hours ago [-]
> Possibly some people rely on these devices and it adversely impact their joy and livelihood when support is ended.
This happens over and over again in tech.
its true and i agree with you as a user
on the other hand, some software gets harder and costlier to support the longer its out there (think spec changes, security issues, updates in law etc), and even paying a normal subscription for it can cause roi to go negative, especially when factoring in opportunity cost for a business (help the old users or spend that time/money making a new feature for the majority)
my thought on it is if its a subscription, maybe for some software, the longer someone uses the old version the subscription cost could go up slowly, or if its a one-time purchase, after x years they could just buy a support ticket or something...? for ad-supported software i have no ideas...
lwhi 3 hours ago [-]
This reminds me of the time we needed to support IE6.
lukan 3 hours ago [-]
We only had to, because some buerocrats certified IE6 for some processes and did not bother to update with the real world that moved beyond that piece of garbage. So ... thanks for bringing back bad memories.
lwhi 2 hours ago [-]
Gives me PTSD too!
Aloha 7 hours ago [-]
How long should a hardware and software product be expected to last?
Try estimating doing win11 updates on a 20 year old piece of delphi spftware with hardware full go custom ASICs be expected to lsat?
koliber 9 minutes ago [-]
Supporting is a word that means many different things.
It’s ok to stop providing updates to old software and hardware.
It’s OK to not support ancient devices when writing news software.
It’s not ok to make old devices inoperable if they are using the old software and don’t need updates.
Will my old Kindle stop being able to show me the books I bought and downloaded to it? Or will it become impossible to buy new books? If it’s the earlier, it’s borderline criminal. If it’s the latter, I’m unhappy but understand realities.
PaulDavisThe1st 25 minutes ago [-]
Nobody is insisting that the physical kindles last forever, not that the software that they run be upgraded to support all the new bells & whistles of newer devices.
The point is that e-books are basically a data format plus a reader, and if the data format hasn't changed (it hasn't) and a reader is still working, what is gained by preventing that reader from being given new data to present?
amzn doesn't have to "provide support" for old kindles, but they also don't need to prevent them from downloading ebooks.
smcin 2 hours ago [-]
This isn't about hardware "lasting", it's about basic software functionality on older hardware intentionally being disabled. Somewhat similar to Apple's Batterygate.
mystraline 3 hours ago [-]
> How long should a hardware and software product be expected to last?
Until it dies due to unintentional software or hardware defect.
NOT when it is sabotaged by the manufacturer.
songinz 21 minutes ago [-]
>!
happyopossum 13 hours ago [-]
Presumably that “support” you officer is tied to a nice fat multi-year support contract, no?
You can’t equate that to providing ongoing updates and support for a $100 hardware device indefinitely.
protocolture 9 hours ago [-]
I have a customer that had to be talked into ending support for a product they built in the 80s and provided unlimited, material cost only, repair plan for.
They replaced the product, but they kept buying the parts and updating the software for the old one. And customers were absolutely still sending back their broken ones getting at cost replacements.
It was like looking at a well engineered, thoughtfully maintained hole in the bottom of a cruise liner.
Zambyte 7 hours ago [-]
There are other people who can and will support it. Let them.
Twirrim 9 hours ago [-]
I'm not sure if they ever changed away from it, but early generation kindles were running an old version of embedded java (4 I think? Pre-generics), that was already quite painful to deal with, with the team having to maintain their own forks, build tools etc. because nothing supported it. Reportedly there wasn't a way to actually upgrade the version either. While I wish they'd support them longer, I'm not surprised that they've finally decided it's not worth it.
NotPractical 1 hours ago [-]
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jzb 42 minutes ago [-]
No. It’s not. It’s just that we’ve been conditioned to accept that disposable devices are the way of things.
pjmlp 9 hours ago [-]
I still remember support for life.
TV, refrigerator, recorder, whatever electronics, broke down and I or my parents would take it to one of several repair locations around town.
Software coming in eproms or disks meant QA was actually a thing to get right, not as online updates that eventually stop.
gambiting 35 minutes ago [-]
I think that's kinda different - these repair shops could repair anything because things were repairable and because people had the skill to do so, and because the financial reality meant that repairing something almost always made more sense than buying new. I still know these people who are happy to do soldering on modern TV motherboards to fix them, but it's just very hard to justify financially in Western economies. I once shipped an entire HiFi system to a repair shop in Poland because a guy there could fix it for equivalent of €50, even with shipping the thing there and back it was worth it. Meanwhile my local repair shop wanted €100 just to diagnose the issue.
fsflover 19 minutes ago [-]
My 20-year-old laptop still runs latest Debian with all security and (optionally!) feature updates.
zeafoamrun 11 hours ago [-]
If only you knew the lengths amazon went to to keep supporting these devices. Stopping support is emblematic of the Jassy era, of amazon becoming just like any other bigco. This would've been unthinkable under Bezos.
segmondy 3 hours ago [-]
you think? i can bring up my 40 yrs old NES and it works every time.
delecti 2 hours ago [-]
You can just as easily insert an NES cartridge today as when it launched, and you can just as easily copy a .mobi file over USB to a Kindle as when it launched, both without using the internet.
mystraline 3 hours ago [-]
That was before the public everything-connected internet era.
Now, even Nintendo destroys your hardware if you do something they dont like.
Like every one of these terrible companies, Im 100% sure that if they could update the NES firmware to destroy the console or sabotage it, they would.
tmerc 45 minutes ago [-]
My ps2 has Ethernet, so does my Xbox 360. They're two different phases of online access. The ps2 I wouldn't worry about putting on the Internet. The 360 is a bit different because it has firmware updates. That said, afaik Microsoft has not tried to remotely disable the 360, which is about 20 years old. Xbox live even worked a couple years ago when I really wanted to play rez. I think they disabled xbl finally but they didn't brick my console or make it not work less.
So it's a choice.
u_fucking_dork 3 hours ago [-]
Cool story bro. Maybe you should read books on it on the go too then.
oceanplexian 10 hours ago [-]
14 years is impressive? Wait until you find out how long a real book can last.
userbinator 9 hours ago [-]
It's not like old books are particularly rare and fragile either (although many which did not use acid-free paper can deteriorate quite rapidly); I have a few from the early 19th century, which are still in good condition.
(They have also been scanned and are available on archive.org; the copyright is long expired and they're public domain.)
WalterBright 7 hours ago [-]
I'm sad that Apple cut off support for my iPod. It still takes a charge and is a joy, except that most of the apps no longer work, because what they connect to is gone.
I used to be able to read books on it and watch Netflix.
My iphone is a boat anchor next to the sleek, slick iPod.
neoromantique 3 hours ago [-]
It says a lot about our world that artificially discontinuing a fully functional device (thankfully mine are offline and jailbroken) is "pretty incredible".
Sad even
realusername 4 hours ago [-]
I have my 2010 Kobo and it still works fine, you can copy books by usb to it.
muyuu 4 hours ago [-]
not when all it takes is not to actively boycott the device
solenoid0937 15 hours ago [-]
Yeah, I do not really see the problem here. These devices are ancient and the panic is unwarranted. The older Kindles can be jailbroken if anyone cares that much.
I think there is a smaller argument that the newer Kindles don't feel as nice. The Oasis was the pinnacle of e-reader hardware design, and it'll be sad when they stop supporting it, but it certainly won't be worthy of a news article or this kind of reaction.
phil21 11 hours ago [-]
> The Oasis was the pinnacle of e-reader hardware design, and it'll be sad when they stop supporting it, but it certainly won't be worthy of a news article or this kind of reaction.
To me it would. If they don't have a similar device released by that time.
It would get me motivated enough to finally de-DRM all the books on my device (or pirate copies I can't otherwise decrypt) and copy them to a third party something like a Kobo Reader or whatnot.
I am firmly in the Kindle ecosystem sort of by accident and inertia, but if they were to end support of the only device that meets my needs (page turn buttons and waterproof - which for the latter to be useful you need the former) it'd be the end of Kindles for me forever, and I'd certainly bitch a lot about it on-line!
If they end support for it 12 year after release but offer a reasonable upgrade path? I'd grin and bear it. 12 years is a decent amount of time for a $200 device.
Shorel 3 hours ago [-]
Isn't it already too late for that?
The devices were made obsolete in part to disable known methods of de-DRM kindle books.
It is quite possible you won't be able to de-DRM anything if you try right now, and any point in the future.
tapland 13 hours ago [-]
Sigh. The unnoteworthy useless ancient device Noone should talk about that has the features everyone wishes the newer versions had.
Yeah, it's the smells wherever you go problem.
gambiting 40 minutes ago [-]
I also think they leave so much money on the table by not having the simplest of features - why can't I gift someone kindle books? I'd be buying so many for friends and family, but there is literally no way to do that on kindle. It's money they aren't getting.
wilsonnb3 35 minutes ago [-]
You can do that, in the US at least.
paulcole 17 hours ago [-]
> Every time they announce new Kindle products, half of the comments are like "I hope they have buttons," "I hope they bring back the Oasis," etc.
WWII fighter plane with red spots on it dot gif.
The vast majority of people who buy Kindles simply read books on them and don’t repeatedly cry online about features that are never coming back.
I’ve bought about 10 of the things dating back to 2012 either because I wanted to have the latest model or because I wanted to give one as a gift. They are all amazing devices.
I’ve never thought, “boy I better go online and complain about this one.” I’ve just been too busy buying and reading books on them!
kuschku 13 hours ago [-]
The reason people complain is because the old kindles used to have buttons, and honestly the touch screen is really fucking janky if you're used to the page turning buttons of the kindle 4, or the onscreen keyboard is janky if you're used to the kindle 3g.
And the sad part is that there's no best of both. You can't get a kindle paperwhite with buttons.
paulcole 13 hours ago [-]
Kindle 4 came out in 2011. I think 15 years is enough time to get ready for a buttonless kindle world.
phil21 11 hours ago [-]
No amount of "getting used to buttonless" can keep a touchscreen from registering water droplets as touch.
So until they can figure out how to make touch screen work in those conditions, any device released without page turn buttons is useless to me.
It's not a preference thing for me. It's simply a physical requirement for my environment.
Yes, I do understand I'm a rather niche use-case and don't really expect them to pander to me. But I will be vocal about it just so they know I exist! There are at least dozens of us!
The fact I can continue to buy refurbished Oasis units whenever I leave one in airplane seatback pocket is the only reason I'm still on the Kindle ecosystem. The second I cannot make that work it's off to third party for me and they will lose an infinitesimal portion of their captured audience for future book purchases.
WalterBright 7 hours ago [-]
I left my Kindle in the airplane seatback pocket. I got it back because taped to the back of it was my name, phone #, and email. I was very happy to get it back!
paulcole 2 hours ago [-]
Yes, this is exactly what I’m talking about.
zeafoamrun 11 hours ago [-]
There being capacitive touch panels that are designed not to register water as a touch has been a thing for 15+ years.
kuschku 12 hours ago [-]
Why 15 years? Why should I ever have to accept things getting worse? Isn't the point of progress that things get better?
There's multiple touch zones (which aren't visible or marked), there's multiple gestures you can interact with, and it's so slow and janky enough that you never know what will happen when you touch it.
Will it go forwards? Or backwards? By one page? Or a dozen? Will it open the settings? Or change the brightness? Or just close the book? You never know.
I want to lose myself in the book, I want to forget the device even exists, not fight the device for half a minute whenever it decides to go forward by 11 pages, open the settings, change the font and brightness just because I wanted to go one page back
umbra07 11 hours ago [-]
I've never had this issue. And I use Koreader - which has much larger touch zones than the normal Kindle software.
Are you normally reading in a moving vehicle or something?
kuschku 1 hours ago [-]
> Are you normally reading in a moving vehicle or something?
Indeed I am! My primary use case for the kindle is to use it on the train.
> which has much larger touch zones than the normal Kindle software.
That may actually be the reason why. The regular software is extremely sensitive to gestures and has small touch zones, so it's easy to miss the zone, or trigger a gesture, instead of clicking what you want to click.
I also frequently have to go back a page or two and re-read a section or two, so if I read physical books I always have my fingers placed so I can go back a page or two easily, and on the kindle that works a lot less reliably (especially due to the ~500ms latency on the paperwhite).
Wheras on the Kindle 4 with the forward/back buttons on both sides it was really convenient to actually go back and forth (and instant, as flipping a page back or forth on the kindle 4 never triggered a full display refresh)
thrownthatway 8 hours ago [-]
Reading in a moving vehicle?
Is this something people aren’t supposed to do?
fragmede 1 hours ago [-]
Depends on each individual's propensity for motion sickness when doing so. If you don't get it, read on!
paulcole 2 hours ago [-]
Kindles are much cheaper today than they were 15 years ago (adjusted for inflation). Seems like progress!
kuschku 1 hours ago [-]
I've gone back to physical books. Even if that means carrying huge hardcover textbooks that weigh more than a pound, the reading experience is much nicer than a Kindle if I can flip between e.g. an explanation and the corresponding figure easily back and forth.
Which I can't with a touchscreen kindle with a "back" zone that's 5mm wide and easy to miss. And even then the back zone only works if I keep the finger perfectly still, as even the slightest movement is interpreted as a "forwards" gesture.
And no, it's not cheaper. They were 40€/80€ back then, which would be 54€ and 108€ respectively, and now the equivalent model costs 109€.
PaulDavisThe1st 20 minutes ago [-]
Kindles for extended backpacking trips, though ... a godsend. Unless you're one of the younger crowd that is somehow OK reading books on a phone (though that uses way more power).
PaulDavisThe1st 22 minutes ago [-]
You may have noted the number of automobile makers announcing they are switching back to buttons after trying several years of button-free ... I wonder why that might be ...
thrownthatway 8 hours ago [-]
What a stupid thing to say.
The problem with a buttonless word is that it doesn’t have buttons.
Anyone who’s ever even seen a button from a distance has immediately known a world with buttons is superior to a world without buttons.
FarmerPotato 6 hours ago [-]
Though zippers are still welcomed by many folks.
trueno 15 hours ago [-]
if they want buttons just look at the various e-readers online there's like such a breadth of these things now its insane. i personally was fetched an xteink reader cause theyre tiny (literally magsafes to the back of my phone wtf) and i love that (they have buttons) and chucked this dudes custom firmware on it to make formatting and usability a lil bit better https://github.com/crosspoint-reader/crosspoint-reader
is it kindle, no but can i read a book on it yeah. easily.
Insanity 17 hours ago [-]
+1. It seems like there is just a vocal minority who complain about the missing HW buttons etc.
I’m sure Amazon has enough actual customer data to make their product decisions based on what moves the most volume.
ryandrake 16 hours ago [-]
Just like the 3.5mm headphone jack, which a very vocal bunch of people are still complaining about, 10 years after iPhone got rid of it.
Macha 2 hours ago [-]
I recently had to do a flight without my headphones, because they had discharged because the switch had got jostled and activated in my luggage. 10 years on, we're still running into the disadvantages of losing 3.5mm headphones, so of course there's complaints.
anonymars 11 hours ago [-]
I traded occasionally making my life more difficult, and in return I got what? My old phone was equally waterproof
u_fucking_dork 3 hours ago [-]
Keep buying phones with headphone jacks and removable batteries then. They exist. If every social media user that whined about these things acted with their wallet maybe they’d be able to change something.
kuschku 52 minutes ago [-]
They are — all non-flagships do still have headphone jacks, even the Pixel A lineup kept them for many many years after the mainline Pixel phones dropped them.
And the reason most phones keep these is because wireless headphones are in the end luxury. They're not necessary, they're not even significantly better, but they're in the end a class symbol.
PaulDavisThe1st 18 minutes ago [-]
Earlier this year, the Guardian had a piece about the way in which wired headphones were now the status signifier among a certain cohort ...
onetokeoverthe 14 hours ago [-]
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PunchyHamster 15 hours ago [-]
Different way to think about it: Whatever failings device might have, people still buy it for Amazon service integration.
Also "but people buy it anyway" is terrible way to disregard legitimate criticizm without thinking
paulcole 14 hours ago [-]
“But people cry about it” doesnt mean the criticisms are legitimate.
To be fair, I don’t think the criticisms are illegitimate by your definition, I just think they’re pointless and from vocal crybabies.
lynndotpy 13 hours ago [-]
You are only making complaints about criticisms (which you acknowledge as legitimate). If complaints from consumers about consumer devices are pointless and the consumers are "vocal crybabies", then how would you categorize yourself and your complaints about their complaints?
paulcole 13 hours ago [-]
I’m no better than anyone. I was using the other persons definition where it seems there is no illegitimate criticism. I honestly think anybody crying that there aren’t buttons on a kindle needs to come to terms with reality and move on with their life.
lynndotpy 12 hours ago [-]
"Crying" is needlessly dismissive and it doesn't strengthen your position.
I'm happy there is a mass of popular sentiment that consumer devices are better with buttons. I think they're to whom we can credit the return (or addition of new) buttons to cars, to phones, and to all manner of appliances (induction stoves, thermostats, ACs.)
In either case, it looks like the last Kindle with buttons disappeared only late 2024, a year and a half ago. This was a recent enough phenomena that these complaints make sense. Amazon still has a chance to get with the times and release an eReader with buttons.
paulcole 2 hours ago [-]
> I'm happy there is a mass of popular sentiment that consumer devices are better with buttons
There is not. It’s the same 11 people who have a hobby of posting online about how much they miss buttons.
lynndotpy 23 minutes ago [-]
This is more needlessly dismissive rhetoric. You don't really believe it's eleven people.
I know "touchscreens are the future and those button-lovers are rarities who will die out soon" was a popular thing to believe, but that was back in the 00s. People like b uttons.
wiseowise 8 hours ago [-]
> I’m no better than anyone.
> dismisses user wishes and calls people “vocal crybabies”
I’m honestly amazed how someone can lack so much self-awareness.
paulcole 2 hours ago [-]
I’m not amazed by it!
wiseowise 8 hours ago [-]
You don’t really care about any buttons or
Kindles, you just want to complain about “vocal
crybabies”, do you?
wiseowise 9 hours ago [-]
Ultimate consoomer. Eats whatever shit it’s being fed and doesn’t complain. Powers that be know better what is good for you anyway, right?
paulcole 2 hours ago [-]
Why would I complain? I can start reading nearly any book I want to in a few seconds for around $10.
smcin 2 hours ago [-]
How long is your expectation that you can access that e-book, after you pay $10?
u_fucking_dork 3 hours ago [-]
Yes, let’s flock to social media to complain, that’ll surely do something other than signal to other dipshits that we are in their perpetually dissatisfied in group
MerlinDE 7 hours ago [-]
This move has nothing to do with usability or device capabilities or software support. The only reason for turning them off is to remove a hole in their DRM. These old devices allowed you to remove the copy protection from their books (hardly anyone else uses DRM these days anymore). Removing the old devices makes freeing your books from DRM just much harder.
ay 6 hours ago [-]
With almost 600 books in my kindle collection over a period of about 15 years, I would like to think I was a relatively active customer. When they announced “your kindle books are just a license to read”, which happened about the time they announced the deprecation of the old format, I went and converted the entirety of my library to Calibre with multiple open formats.
That was in December, I have not bought a single book on Amazon since then, and the kindle app is not installed on my new phone. Just in case anyone from the relevant AMZN department is reading this.
sails 3 hours ago [-]
Yes.
I often laugh (cry) at the Kindle Product Manager team who ship nothing but DRM updates.
How about a dictionary modal where the font is the same size as the page text..? Hard to imagine what they do all day, given they do seem to force updates but nothing seems to improve
cvcount 6 hours ago [-]
> hardly anyone else uses DRM these days anymore
I thought that all the major ebook stores had DRM on most purchases, and it was just a few indie publishers choosing to be DRM-free. Has that changed?
blcknight 4 hours ago [-]
It hasn't changed, and I don't know why people are saying that most books don't have DRM. It is only a small minority.
Tor books is the largest publisher without it (owned by Macmillan). Otherwise everything is truly hard DRM either ACSM with epub or Kindle's. They are both more or less easily defeated though.
t-3 2 hours ago [-]
Kobo does carry DRM-free books, and I've never encountered DRM on any books I bought directly from authors' or publishers' websites either.
u_fucking_dork 3 hours ago [-]
Because these are people that don’t buy the books anyway. They pirate them and put them onto their 2010 Chinese ebook reader.
generic92034 5 hours ago [-]
There is a difference between hard and soft DRM. Soft DRM can be only some watermark, not keeping you from creating copies for your own devices. Hard DRM aims to prevent any copying.
In my experience soft DRM is very common, hard DRM not so much.
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46493168 11 minutes ago [-]
The problem Amazon has is that they already designed the perfect e-reader and released it in 2016. It's called the Kindle Oasis. All they had to do was keep making marginal improvements to this design (USB-C, faster processor) every few years. But that doesn't move units, need creation does, and convincing people that they need a new Amazon store front-end requires new form factors.
All these stories of people who have been using the same Kindle for 15 years is not an Amazon success story because those people have not been buying Kindles. It's true even though Amazon makes far more on the margin of sending special locked up text files that were written by someone else.
mackross 3 hours ago [-]
moved to kobo (the nice one with colour screen) with calibre web running behind a cloudflare tunnel, getting books direct through smallest publishers/authors. Adds the tiniest bit of friction in book acquisition but reading experience, battery life, everything else shits on my kindle experience (and I’ve owned every one).
WhyNotHugo 2 hours ago [-]
What software do you use on the device itself? I recently got a Kobo Clara HD, but software support seems to be a big issue.
On one hand, there's folks using the vendor's OS, which looks like an abandoned custom-made Linux distro, where compiling anything is a nightmare. It's not really made to be hackable, but just to read books purchased via their partners.
OTOH, there's a near-mainline kernel, which works nicely, and hacking on the device becomes much nicer, but e-reader-oriented software seems to commonly rely on kernel APIs only present in the vendor's abandoned fork, and won't work on a more mainline Linux. But this is a great target for actually developing stuff.
I'm tempted to write my own minimal e-reader-focused DE, but honestly, I don't want another project on my hands and would like to use something that's already there.
awakeasleep 3 hours ago [-]
Please mention that color e-ink has significantly lower contrast than black and white. I thought I did enough research, but was bitten by this caveat- I would trade basically any feature for more contrast.
On the plus side, with your setup, you can have the lowest friction ebook experience possible on planet Earth by installing koreader, and then the z-library plugin.
t-3 2 hours ago [-]
There are some tablets with RLCD screens that have decent colors and contrast (not quite as good as 300dpi eink, but close, with color and fast updates), but most w/color screens lack proper frontlights for some reason, and they all run android so it's a bit of a mixed bag compared to a proper Kobo/Pocketbook/Linux eink tablet, but having a decent browser on a reflective display without having to cross-compile for 32-bit ARM linux is great.
__rito__ 20 hours ago [-]
I will just stick with Kindles. Indian heat and humidity make a Kindle unusable in 7-8 years, unless you have a 100% AC life.
Kindles last a month on a charge or two. It's very light. It's affordable.
It doesn’t show colors, but I have an android tab to read papers and technical content, anyway.
I tried looking at alternatives, but low price + extreme power efficiency + being able to sideload books is just great.
mrec 19 hours ago [-]
I was about to complain that my Paperwhite only lasts a couple of days between charges (it shuts down when battery drops to ~50%) but then realized that I've had it 7-8 years. No Indian heat here though, I'm in the UK.
brycethornton 17 hours ago [-]
Try keeping it on airplane mode if you don't already. It definitely improves the length of a charge.
mrec 16 hours ago [-]
Already do. I hate to think what it would be like now otherwise.
strooper 16 hours ago [-]
I replaced the battery after using the kindle Paperwhite for 7+ years. And now its battery life is as good as the new one's.
mrec 12 hours ago [-]
Ooh, I honestly hadn't considered that; thanks for the tip. The waterproof seal around the screen has degraded too, but I very rarely read in the rain these days.
stavros 21 minutes ago [-]
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jay_kyburz 19 hours ago [-]
Kobo is all that but without Amazon.
stock_toaster 15 hours ago [-]
Unfortunately a lot of fiction (sci-fi/fantasy) ebooks are effectively kindle exclusive these days (amazon publisher deals exclusivity), due to the near monopoly amazon has… and since they have locked things down even harder lately, it is much more difficult to export purchases to other readers.
ornornor 11 hours ago [-]
Switched to kobo years ago, will never buy a kindle again.
Also, koreader!
BeetleB 10 hours ago [-]
koreader works on Kindles.
GlitchRider47 2 hours ago [-]
Only if jailbroken
kstrauser 15 hours ago [-]
Seconded. I bought a Libra 2 a few years ago and loved it so much that I’ve gifted a couple more. There’s nothing about it I’d want to change.
Lanrei 14 hours ago [-]
I'd change mine so that the portrait and landscape button layout were separately configurable.
kstrauser 13 hours ago [-]
Huh. OK, fair point. I have my portrait buttons swapped because my thumb naturally rests next to the top button. I don't use in landscape enough to be an issue.
BTW, slapping a pop socket on the back so I can comfortably read with one hand was a game changer.
rypskar 8 hours ago [-]
I did consider a Kobo, but the terrible website did turn me away. When trying to browse it was wait for button on tracking consent to be active so I could click reject. Then change language to what I'm fluent in instead of getting language based on IP, reject tracking, reject changing region back to IP based and the same two reject for every link clicked. Half the times pages was still shown in language based on my location instead of what I have set or what my user agent tell I want.
When a site ask about allowing tracking for every page shown I assume the company care more about selling PII than getting customers, so not a company I want to use
MrDOS 55 minutes ago [-]
This argument would hold a lot more water if the alternative you're siding with weren't Amazon.
Insanity 17 hours ago [-]
There is a Kindle Color<something>. Haven’t used that yet either.
liveoneggs 14 hours ago [-]
I just replaced my old kindle with a colorsoft. It was annoyingly white until I figured out how to get that old school kindle yellow/newspaper/paperback look going again.
The newer battery is nice and usb-c is a big upgrade instead of finding my last mini usb (or whatever it was). I think I'm down to just one last thing on that stupid cable (a camping lantern).
j45 18 hours ago [-]
There are other similarly priced and equally capable e-readers.
gibber878 17 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
latentframe 9 hours ago [-]
A big amount of user loyalty comes from products that feel finished more than always evolving. Early Kindles felt closer to bookshelves than software platforms
0x38B 3 hours ago [-]
My Kindle Touch, judging by the plastic, is old, on its second battery. I love that the reading experience has not changed at all in the time I’ve had the device. I never thought of it as a bookshelf, but that’s a great way to put it.
In contrast, my iPhone changes with each update, but often I find not for the better – I hated the new control center at first, and while I made it mostly match the old one, the tap targets are smaller than they used to be, on my 4.7” display.
onidj 1 days ago [-]
Having used an early kindle and a recent kindle, they are incredibly similar. One of the main innovations of the new models appears to be adverts you have to pay to get rid of.
fodkodrasz 1 days ago [-]
Also gradually phasing out support of formats like mobi, in such subtle ways that if you open a mobi file you cannot go back to the library, but have to cold-reboot your device...
My current kindle is my third one, and is the last. I will never ever pay for a kindle to Amazon, due to its user hostility.
Oh, and also you cannot move ebooks between accounts, even not with a lot of friction, eg. support tickets, which would be a fair way to game piracy and unwanted lending, which was some inconvinience for me in a situation. Not a huge monetary loss for me, rather a reminder that when you pay to Amazon (or Valve, or any other contemporary DRM-burdened vendor) you are only leasing...
dghlsakjg 2 hours ago [-]
Minor nit: Steam doesn’t require DRM. That is left up to the game publisher.
neves 17 hours ago [-]
It's what I hate the most: I can't lend a book to my wife to talk about it.
Just US and UK have family accounts.
kuboble 1 days ago [-]
My kindle from 2012 used to have ads you needed to pay for to get rid of. It was sold as separate product with or without ads at a time. I had one with ads.
I keep it offline in airplane mode permanently from 2016 and haven't seen a single ad in a long long time.
ZeWaka 20 hours ago [-]
You'll get a new ad if you take it online again, but they only persist for about a month or so before falling back to the generic 'read books' amazon ad.
I have my 2016 one setup without a password so when I open my cover the device unlocks, so I never really even see the ad unless I try.
FarmerPotato 6 hours ago [-]
I just realized I like how the ads in my paperbacks have been there for decades.
Flere-Imsaho 6 hours ago [-]
The fact that having ads on a product designed for reading is so dystopian. A great new term has recently entered the lexicon to describe this:
Have you never read a magazine or a newspaper? Ads have been in products designed for reading for your entire life.
And it’s an ad on the lock screen, not an ad interrupting your reading. I buy the ad free versions though.
totetsu 17 hours ago [-]
There are cracks for older firmware and others for newer. You can have it online and adfree with a little forum reading.
IshKebab 1 days ago [-]
I have a similar one and I never bothered to pay to get rid of the ads or keep it in aeroplane mode.
The ads are only shown while it's off, they're static black and white images, and 99% of the time they're for books. Totally unobjectionable.
If they were in the actual UI and for stuff like cars and perfume I might mind, but they aren't so I never cared.
avazhi 20 hours ago [-]
> The ads are only shown while it's off, they're static black and white images, and 99% of the time they're for books. Totally unobjectionable
Speak for yourself. Aside from the principle, some of us don’t want to be advertised to in the comfort of our own home/bed/while we’re camping or whatever. Ads don’t have to be actively flashing, spaz-inducing insanity to be objectionable.
Not to mention that by definition an ad like this WILL be seen and attended to, even if only momentarily. That in itself is also objectionable.
u_fucking_dork 3 hours ago [-]
Sounds like you’re speaking from ignorance on this. Making up something to be mad about. Likely not even a kindle user.
If you don’t want ads just buy the no ad version.
If you use your kindle in case you’ll never see the ad because by the time you open the cover it’s gone.
turtlebits 19 hours ago [-]
Customers have proven they'd rather pay less for the option to see ads. As long as you can pay for an ad-less experience, I see no problem with it.
dnlzro 13 hours ago [-]
Considering how difficult it is now to buy a TV without ad-infested “smart” software, I think we should all be grateful for the opportunity to pay to remove ads.
But what a sad world we live in…
daemonologist 16 hours ago [-]
The "library" UI has also gotten radically worse over time (in my family there is a 3G, an early Paperwhite, and a relatively recent base model, and each has a worse and sparser UI than the last). The pages turn faster though, due to improved display/display driver tech.
mrec 10 hours ago [-]
And meanwhile the webapp's library UI doesn't even let you filter by read status.
madarco 1 days ago [-]
Actually, the old Kindle had physical buttons, which I find more ergonomic when reading in bed
gruturo 1 days ago [-]
That's what your nose is for. (I'm quite skilled at advancing or going back by gently tapping the kindle against my face. It helps that I'm very nearsighted so it's kind of already there)
cbdevidal 1 days ago [-]
Same here. I read your comment from two inches away lol
literalAardvark 1 days ago [-]
Really wish my 1st gen Paperweight had split forward and back buttons on the right side.
But then I also understand that'd increase the price by 10% and only help right handed people with weak hands so... c'est la vie.
phil21 11 hours ago [-]
> But then I also understand that'd increase the price by 10% and only help right handed people with weak hands so... c'est la vie.
You can... turn them upside down to become a left-handed device. That way you can be weak-handed with either hand!
literalAardvark 7 hours ago [-]
Only way to get buttons that are comfy on both sides would be to flip it screen out. That doesn't seem like a very useful position to hold a reader in though.
If you turn it upside down the left hand buttons will be way too high on the reader
ZeWaka 20 hours ago [-]
There are newer ones with physical buttons.
stevewodil 18 hours ago [-]
There are but it's discontinued. There is no current generation model with page turn buttons.
happyopossum 13 hours ago [-]
> adverts you have to pay to get rid of
Those have been around since day 1 afaik - my second gen kindle had them over ~12 years ago
gibber878 17 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
somewhatgoated 6 hours ago [-]
What is a good e-reader nowadays?
I had a pocket book 2 for 15+ years but destroyed the display recently :/
Looking for a replacement now that is black&white, has a very good paper like screen, long battery life and allows me to read any .epub/.mobi without DRM or other bs restrictions.
I don’t need colour screen, don’t need audio support and no integrations with any shops or anything like that.
Kindle is ruled out, I looked at Kobo but the screen appeared low quality compared to my old pocket book.
Anything you can recommend here?
d-us-vb 5 hours ago [-]
Remarkable 2 is pretty good, though last time I used it the search feature for large pdfs was pretty janky. The BOOX eink devices are also perfectly fine; they're really just android tablets with a special build of android for eink devices. Those are the ones I've used personally.
Pocket Book still makes eink ereaders, though. Is there something wrong with their offerings if you stuck with one of their products for 15 years?
somewhatgoated 5 hours ago [-]
I’ll check out Box, thanks for the tip!
I’ll also take a look at the newer pocket books - I only stuck so long with my old one because it worked perfectly fine and there was no reason to get a new device.
tacker2000 5 hours ago [-]
I've now moved to an Android eReader (Boox Note 7, for example [1]).
I can just get the Ebook or PDF files and transfer them via Calibre, simple as that, and I can also download any Android app i want. There are tons of apps out there that support eInk screens.
I am waiting for when the patents expire and we finally get some competition, quality and lower prices.
fsflover 5 hours ago [-]
How about PineNote?
d-us-vb 5 hours ago [-]
PineNote isn't really a consumer device. PINE64 has made it abundantly clear that the PineNote is a developer playground device; they're waiting on the community to refine the software support and flesh out the ecosystem for it.
WithinReason 1 days ago [-]
Just got an xteink x4 and flashed crosspoint on it, I've been tuning fonts by modifying the font generator and now it renders great.
Maybe I'm getting old, but I don't see the appeal of reading on an eink device that's smaller than my phone, which I'm always carrying. Maybe if I'm reading outside in sunlight rather than in bed? Or if I'm worried about getting distracted by a FB/X notification?
dghlsakjg 2 hours ago [-]
The appeal is that it is a better reading screen than a phone, while being the same size as a phone. It means that I can take a book anywhere without having to bring a bag
kstrauser 15 hours ago [-]
Different person, but I bought a set for me and my wife on a whim because they’re so cheap, and found I adore the little thing. I have a public transit commute to and from work. Since getting it, I’ve spent my commutes reading books I’ve meant to get around to.
I have a Kobo I keep at home. I love it, but don’t want to risk breaking it while carrying it around in my backpack, and it’s too big to comfortably hold on a crowded BART (let alone to dig around in my bag to get it out and put it away). The X4 is always in my pants pocket during the commute and small enough to break out wherever I am. Also, it’s small enough to not feel fragile, and cheap enough that it wouldn’t be devastating if I broke it anyway.
bwilliams 20 hours ago [-]
Same. It’s the best ebook experience I’ve had so far despite its size and I’ve tried a myriad of ereaders.
The only missing feature is a backlight for reading at night.
neves 17 hours ago [-]
Back light is a necessity for couples or places with bad light. It is one the greatest Kindle features of all time.
dabeeeenster 1 days ago [-]
Love my x4! I saw 1.3 allows you to bring in your own fonts - any suggestions?
crtasm 1 days ago [-]
It also added a list of fonts that can be directly downloaded, not had chance to try them out yet
lol8675309 28 minutes ago [-]
This is my shocked face. Same as my regular face.
PeterStuer 20 hours ago [-]
So their inhouse AI which they are forcing all their devs on is not capable of figuring out how to render what is basically the equivalent of an .md onto the older Kindles?
butvacuum 19 hours ago [-]
they're updating the DRM.
kyranjamie 1 days ago [-]
My 14 year old Kindle functions so perfectly I've no desire to upgrade. This is exactly why KOReader and all the jailbreaks exist.
rando1234 20 hours ago [-]
So it will be possible to jailbreak it and upload my own files still?
They aren’t bricking the devices, they are making them not work with the Amazon store and library features anymore. My Kindle Keyboard (3rd generation device) still works perfectly well with sideloaded books. It’s jailbroken and runs KOReader, which lets you read ePub directly.
It’s easier to read things on my Kindle Keyboard than on my original iPad.
loloquwowndueo 18 hours ago [-]
Yes, I did it for my Kindle 2 and it works well.
bborud 4 hours ago [-]
What I don’t get is why the publishing industry never got its act together, listened to customers and got its act together.
Yes, like many industries I have worked in I can imagine that they are unable to cooperate because of petty greed and short-sightedness: they would rather have the whole market taken away from them than endure the possibility that some of their direct competitors get a small, temporary advantage.
It should not be hard to create truly interoperable systems that can cut Amazon out of the equation. It isn’t a technology issue. We have technology that easily solves every conceivable aspect of distributing, paying for and consuming ebooks.
This should be the ultimate opportunity for the publishing industry. Especially given that Amazon isn’t investing much in development of devices.
swores 4 hours ago [-]
I'm not very familiar with anti-cartel laws (in any country), but I wonder if there would be legal issues preventing publishing companies from working together in such a way even if they otherwise had wanted to?
(Though even if that is the case, I'd still think they could have at least agreed on open standards to use, to prevent anyone like Amazon from creating vendor lock-in.)
But Amazon had advantages from its size. In terms of economies of scale for device manufacturing, publishers could have somewhat caught up if they pooled money to invest in a co-owned company that made devices (though still wouldn't have had such an advantage as Amazon, who could share R&D and production costs with any overlaps to other devices such as smart home speakers, Android tablets, etc.) But Amazon was also able to take a bigger picture approach, using cheap Kindles/ebooks to attract people into their ecosystem and then converting a not-insignificant amount of them to buying other stuff on Amazon.
neves 17 hours ago [-]
Does anyone has experience with Android e-ink ebook readers? Are they worth it?
An Android e-ink reader would be perfect for it. And I'd use kindle app to read my kindle ebooks. But I don't really see people using them.
oddeyed 17 hours ago [-]
I bought a second hand Meebook M6 on ebay. At least, it was listed as second hand but seemed to be fresh out of the box when it arrived. I completely love it.
For actually reading ebooks, I'm using Koreader instead of the built-in reader because I find the UI a bit easier to get my head around. I mostly use it for PDFs related to classroom learning, but have the odd epub knocking around from project gutenburg etc.
It has Google Play support, so I can use the Libby app to access my local library's ebook collection (including offline access to travel guides - so useful). I also use the Sefaria app to read Hebrew scripture (also supports offline). These apps tend to use the battery faster than Koreader and having scrolling controls instead of page-turning controls is a bit of a pain, but quite manageable.
I haven't tried the Kindle app, but I'm sure it would work fine.
I really don’t understand the hype of that product.
It’s like an entrepreneur with social media marketing skills came across a container full of really cheap small eink displays, then designed a product and marketing around it.
unfitted2545 3 hours ago [-]
The reason it's trending right now is because it's a convenient price, simple to use and making people read more because of its size. If it helps people cut down on phone use then it's a good product.
The build quality could be better, but there doesn't exist a similar product with better build quality.
Can you build a DIY version that's significantly cheaper?
Well, this was my thinking for getting one, we shall see when it arrives :P
Edit: Also you can choose to install a nice open source community firmware
tren 16 hours ago [-]
I use a Boox and really like it, but it's definitely not the same price point as a kindle. It has a stylus but I basically use it exclusively for reading.
dotancohen 11 hours ago [-]
I use a Boox Note Air Plus 2. Love the thing.
It's 10 inches, which I find to be a bit too large for an E-Reader. But for surfing the web and note taking this is a terrific device. Boox has smaller Android devices.
propter_hoc 14 hours ago [-]
I just bought a boox go color 2. Kindle form factor, color e-ink screen, runs android, supports stylus.
I don't know if I love it yet but I read seven ebooks in a month on it, so I guess it's been a good purchase. The android kindle app has a neat smooth scrolling feature that works really well.
CGamesPlay 1 days ago [-]
14 years support window is so insanely good. But as it goes...
You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain.
azalemeth 1 days ago [-]
My local library has some dead tree format books with a 500 year support window. Or dead animal or dead reed format books with more like a 2000-year support window.
Planned obsolescence is always bad.
jhbadger 19 hours ago [-]
Unless they are very popular books, they will be weeded (thrown out or or sold) in a matter of a few years though. People imagine that libraries are infinite storehouses of material, but except for places like the Library of Congress they really aren't. There is limited storage space, and in order to get new books they need to discard the old ones that were rarely checked out. Even the example of old books on parchment aren't immune to this trend -- the books we have from Ancient Greece or Rome are just the really popular ones that were copied over and over again, and the vast majority of works from those times are lost.
happyopossum 13 hours ago [-]
> 500 year support window
Err, no. Something “existing” is not the same as something being supported. Is the original printer still providing free translations to modern languages? Fixing typos and other mistakes? Adding chapters on a regular basis?
It’s kinda ludicrous to call the fact that a thing didn’t spontaneously disappear “support”.
CGamesPlay 13 hours ago [-]
And that fact is also true for all of the books on all of the discontinued Kindles.
Given, the kindle won't last 500 years, but the support window is in some senses longer than for those 500-year-old books, which never received a single security update.
FarmerPotato 6 hours ago [-]
I think it was a joke.
Like great jokes, it has a point.
Finnucane 17 hours ago [-]
Your local library keeps papyrus scrolls on open stacks? I mean, sure, yes, there are libraries that haves such things (the university I work for does), but generally they will be kept in special boxes and you need to ask nicely to get to see them. And don't get me started about the crapitude of your average new book these days. Personally, I prefer print books too, but lasting forever is not really why.
mlyle 21 hours ago [-]
I think the bigger issue is that there's market segments that old product reached and that newer ones don't... and you are locked into their devices by the content you've "bought."
14 year support window is pretty good. Not being able to get a modern device with buttons, and having no way to read your books with buttons, isn't.
Dylan16807 11 hours ago [-]
Most things keep working when support runs out.
If your product doesn't work without support, you have villain aspects from day 1.
generic92034 1 days ago [-]
Maybe for ebook readers, but not for books.
ok123456 20 hours ago [-]
A bookshelf can have books that are 100s of years old.
aliasxneo 19 hours ago [-]
I guess I've never been strongly compelled to ditch mine. It sits there next to my bed. I pick it up and read it every night. Every few weeks I remember that you have to actually charge it. My last Kindle started malfunctioning after about 8 years of constant use. I opened a chat with Amazon support and they gave me a 50% coupon off the current version. That was two years ago and I'm still using it.
I do get the argument about lockdown. And there's some mediums I feel more strongly in that area. I suppose Amazon just has me exactly where they want me :)
rldjbpin 3 hours ago [-]
my device just missed the window, and pre-covid it had a battery issue. back then, when i requested amazon to replace the battery, they simply offered a discount on a new one similar to the affected users instead.
it magically started keeping charge recently and is working as i last remembered. i haven't been keeping tabs but the underlying computing of these kindles has been largely the same, TI-84 like, outdated scrap that happens to be enough for the slow refreshing screens.
while it's unlikely for anyone here complaining to own an affected device (that is still their daily driver), i hope they do have a major overhaul incoming which necessitates this. the main pain point with access to your purchases is indeed frustrating, but very few things in computing has lasted me this long.
shrubby 4 hours ago [-]
Who needs software updates and Bezos's spying.
We have several different ecosystem e-readers in our household and all are used via USB and Calibre. The "extra time used" is won by multitude with approach where the reading stays in the center and uploading is once in a while event.
This creates a barrier for addictive bookshopping, though a reader with plenty of books allows the change of minds, not just the endless booscrrolling that a connected device enables.
shrubby 4 hours ago [-]
If there's a problem with the reader the firmware can be updated but I don't remember such issues since my first reader (Kindle version without backlight and physical buttons only, no idea of the year).
Now a fourth one (Kobo) in use and all the previous ones still fully functional and in use by close ones.
torben-friis 4 hours ago [-]
Any recommendations? I've gone back to paper partly because the form factors of kindles don't feel particularly comfortable. The basic kindle feels kinda cramped but I don't like pro-tablet like devices.
comboy 1 days ago [-]
I was looking for a good rationalization to leave the ecosystem, one-click e-books is great and having old device that I can take anywhere not caring about it getting beaten up even more was another major advantage.
Removing some old book I had was the first major red flag.
cryptoz 1 days ago [-]
Some wild irony is they once forcefully removed purchased copies of 1984 from Kindles while people were reading it.
_Microft 1 days ago [-]
“The books will stop working”, discussed 7 years ago:
Yeah mines been on airplane mode for probably a decade now, really not seeing a reason to ever connect it to the internet
prvc 1 days ago [-]
>Amazon said it had supported the devices for 14 years or more and could not keep doing so indefinitely. "Technology has come a long way in that time," said a spokesperson.
Wasn't the original concept of the Kindle that it shouldn't need to be replaced by newer models?
alok-g 16 hours ago [-]
> Amazon said it had supported the devices for 14 years or more and could not keep doing so indefinitely.
Why -- Aren't they also claiming productivity enhancements with AI? ;-)
And did they calculate how much environmental damage may result the decision?
kuboble 1 days ago [-]
I can and will still use mine to read files.
What is discontinued is integration with Amazon account. Which seems fair to me to be fair.
wrxd 1 days ago [-]
Less fair when they sold an integrated device and store
literalAardvark 1 days ago [-]
It'd be fair if they unlocked them.
devilbunny 17 hours ago [-]
The device isn’t locked, and you can continue to read anything on it. You just can’t put new things on it directly from Amazon via its built-in interface.
An original-model Kindle has more of its original functionality than an original-model iPad.
hoppyhoppy2 15 hours ago [-]
The OS is locked, no? That's why people have to jailbreak it to install software like KOreader?
devilbunny 13 hours ago [-]
Yes, the OS is locked. I misunderstood the point of your statement.
But all you are losing is the ability to use the Amazon store and borrowing that requires DRM. It still works fine as an e-Ink reader.
Anecdotally, the OSes on the really old ones are easily jailbroken. They have never updated them to an unbreakable one that I am aware of.
More than I can say for my first-gen iPads, which would still be wonderful devices for reading books today. I have a Kindle because it is, and long has been, the cheapest e-Ink device. It’s my reading-outdoors device; I don’t use it except at the beach/pool.
decafninja 12 hours ago [-]
I got a third (I think?) generation Paperwhite brand new when it was released.
From day 1 it was super laggy. Once I opened a book to read it was fine, but everything up to getting to that point was lag upon lag.
This was a new device of a new generation.
I find the Kindle UX better on my iPhone or iPad.
scubbo 10 hours ago [-]
Kinda baffled by people preferring buttons on their devices. When trying to de-Amazon I bought two Kobos - a Clara BW (without buttons) and a Libra Colour (with). I _much_ prefer the Clara because I can slip it in a pocket, whereas the extra bevel required for the buttons means the Libra must be in a bag (though I still end up using it despite this inconvenience because it can load books wirelessly, unlike the Clara).
Totally agree that a manufacturer should provide both options - I'm just surprised to have non-standard preferences.
arikrahman 1 days ago [-]
Glad I went the Kobo route. Koreader beats Kindle any day of the week.
BeetleB 10 hours ago [-]
Koreader is available on Kindle.
Bud 10 hours ago [-]
[dead]
thih9 1 days ago [-]
My kindle will not be aware of it. It has been in airplane mode ever since I bought it.
Its clock no longer tells correct time; but it’s fine, a book doesn’t have to do that - and I have a watch.
dev_l1x_be 1 days ago [-]
Deadwood loyalists raise an eyebrow and keep reading.
burner420042 1 days ago [-]
There I go
Turn the page
echelon_musk 1 days ago [-]
On the road again
Zambyte 7 hours ago [-]
I'm writing this reply on a Daylight Computer. I can't reco it enough. It's been my primary mobile device over a year now
landgenoot 2 hours ago [-]
Mine doesn't remember the last opened books when the date isn't correct. Unfortunately you cannot set the date manually.
Zambyte 1 hours ago [-]
Did you mean to reply to someone else? You can set the date manually on the Daylight and even if you have trouble, you can just use a different app. It's just Android.
Frenchgeek 3 hours ago [-]
I wonder if there's a KOReader oriented OS for the Kindle, to go beyond jailbreaking it (it's nice, but a bit clunky to me)... There seems to be an Android port for some models so it should be possible.
wedg_ 1 days ago [-]
I have a Kindle which I think is surviving this purge. But after looking at alternatives like the Kobo, I wondered where people got their books?
Ofc there's the high seas, but I'd quite like to support the authors and I can afford ~£10 for a book now and then. But are there any stores as good/convenient as the Amazon one?
bobmarleybiceps 1 days ago [-]
is the kobo store not good/convenient compared to kindle? I thought the kobo
store was pretty good, but it is my first and only e-reader.
Crespyl 15 hours ago [-]
Kobo store is convenient but feels pricey sometimes (I don't have experience with the Kindle store). I don't mind paying them though, because it's still easy enough to strip the DRM and make backup copies of my books. If that changes, I'll take my business elsewhere.
I make a lot of use of my local library through the native Overdrive integration.
exmadscientist 15 hours ago [-]
There's nothing wrong with the Kobo store itself, but some titles are only published via Amazon. Especially from self-published authors or participants in Kindle Unlimited. Whereas the major releases from the bigger publishers are usually widely available.
This is somewhat annoying. Please don't offer only one storefront as a place to buy your work.
rag-hav 1 days ago [-]
I buy the books of my favorite authors on kindle store, while sailing the high seas to read the books on my Kobo. I don't buy all the books I read though.
Den_VR 1 days ago [-]
Inversely, try to use a kindle as a Korean.
bananaflag 1 days ago [-]
Joke's on them, I keep the Kindle permanently on airplane mode anyway.
moffkalast 1 days ago [-]
The first time I got an ad on mine I did that and switched to the Calibre + z-library workflow. It's been most of a decade since.
It's like people have to be taught the same lesson about SAAS over and over and over again. Like what did they expect, to not get rug pulled eventually? Crazy. You own your shit or you don't. Simple as.
iLoveOncall 1 days ago [-]
You paid for the ads-supported version if you got ads...
nosioptar 1 days ago [-]
Not always obvious. I've stopped several relatives from making that mistake.
For some reason, they're inclined to trust Amazon.
While Calibre makes it easy, it's even easier to just download a copy someone else has already stripped of DRM.
If publishers/authors want my money, they can release a version without DRM.
steve-atx-7600 12 hours ago [-]
Yep. Go to yandex, search for book, download ebook, done. I’ll order a hardcover of the book if I liked it. I don’t mind reading on an iPhone (iBooks will open it and even sync it across devices). If I did, I’d use Calibre to load books on a kindle. I did this recently as a test and it worked on the second version ever made of the kindle.
lostlogin 20 hours ago [-]
Calibre is a rather painful tool, but seems to remain the best.
Calibre web and calibre web automated downloader remove a fair bit of the clunk.
iLoveOncall 1 days ago [-]
No, you choose what is downloaded locally. You can also get .mobi files and copy them to the kindle directly.
Ironically, files downloaded from "other" sources have no issue. So they're just making it harder to buy from Amazon legally.
Procrastes 19 hours ago [-]
I gave up on Kindles long ago. They wake up and drain their batteries, so they're always dead when I pick them up to read something. Not a problem with Kobo. But I really want to pick up one of these little Xteink readers next. They just seem perfect for pulling out of a pocket and reading. Also, I'm a smaller person, and they look like they would fit my hand. Modern phones feel like tablets to me.
html5cat 14 hours ago [-]
Maybe it's ok to upgrade an o($100) device once after, checks notes, 14 years?
Incredible longevity compared to any other device
cbdevidal 1 days ago [-]
Crap like this is why I 1.) export my Kindle books to plain PDF 2.) use a Nook Simple Touch. They work perfectly well 100% offline and are CHEAP now.
Primarily use two of these for a prepper book cache. (Two is one and one is none.) The battery lasts about a month on low cost chargers, and a pair of 32GB SD cards holds my entire collection. (A redundant pair since two is one.) Whole thing sits in an EMP bag in the bugout bag of my car, so I always have my library everywhere I go.
Exporting to PDF used to be pretty straightforward; the newest encryption is a lot harder to bypass but is still possible:
PDF is an atrocious format for this though. Why not export to ePub?
steve-atx-7600 11 hours ago [-]
If you want the exact same typesetting as the physical book, pdf is ideal. On a big enough iPad, this would be readable like a physical book. But, yeah, painful as hell on a smaller screen.
cbdevidal 6 hours ago [-]
I guess that must be other devices. I honestly don’t notice on the Nook. Maybe it was designed for it. Shrug
Bud 10 hours ago [-]
[dead]
cbdevidal 1 days ago [-]
I do both, actually. But I don’t notice the difference personally.
literalAardvark 1 days ago [-]
There's not much of one until you need to reflow the book for a different reader
majorbugger 1 days ago [-]
Two of my paperwhites died so i took the opportunity to switch to kobo and couldn't be happier.
ipeev 13 hours ago [-]
Each of my kindles so far stopped working in about 2 years. I had 5 or 6.
CptKriechstrom 1 days ago [-]
I was in the market to buy a new E-Reader since my old Kindle started to act funny (Random shutdowns while reading and it won't come back for several minutes).
After the announcement I decided to switch to physical books
periphery 1 days ago [-]
Brought a Kobo after Amazon locked my account. There is no going back to a Kindle.
dennismd 1 days ago [-]
I’ve been looking into getting an e-reader, but I’m scared to get one from Amazon due to things like this. Are there any decent hackable and/or trustworthy ones out there?
lomereiter 14 minutes ago [-]
PocketBook is by far the most hackable, especially their b/w readers, which still run Linux 3.10 because of hardware limitations - for these, getting root permissions is trivial with an old jailbreak script based on Dirty COW. (That said, the hardware is rather slow for the price tag.) Most applications use modern Qt 6 / QML. You won't find much information online, but it's a lot of fun exploring all this stuff with Ghidra MCP and creating binary patches. Shameless plug: I created an emulator so that you can download firmware from the official support web page and try it out on a Linux desktop (https://codeberg.org/datyoma/pbemu)
crtasm 1 days ago [-]
Kobo's devices let you bypass the account signup via a single option in a config file. Whether you do so or not it's easy to install koreader and start writing plugins for it. You can also hack on the linux OS they use
pyreko 20 hours ago [-]
Yep, there's a plethora of tweaks and stuff out there to mess with Kobos to make them your own, and it's not hard to do.
Been super happy with my Kobo Clara.
MegaDeKay 16 hours ago [-]
I have a Kobo Clara HD and one day it wouldn't connect to USB anymore. Changed cables, took it apart to examine the connector (it was fine), tried it on both my Desktop and my laptop, etc. I was about to give up on it when I found out that it just doesn't work with USB 3. Verified that by successfully connecting to an old PC downstairs on USB 2. Turns out I hadn't used the Kobo in a while and I had replaced my Desktop and ancient laptop since. Both those older machines were connecting on USB 2 ports.
Got a USB expander dongle on AliExpress for something like six bucks that breaks out a few USB 2 ports and the Kobo is happy as a clam. So am I now, because the Kobo is great.
lostlogin 20 hours ago [-]
You can also sync to your own library - eg calibreweb.
It’s not too disgusting, and over-the-air is nice to have.
theiz 1 days ago [-]
There are Android e-Readers, like Boox, but that does not imply it is easy to do fun stuff. Seems pretty locked down.
I have a PocketBook myself, no complaints there and you can install software (at least I can on the one I have but it is a few years old now) and thus never had the need to hack the thing.
ajdegol 1 days ago [-]
The price of convenience.
ajay-b 1 days ago [-]
Is it possible that Amazon views the Kindle as less than profitable, and so they’re taking the hard line tactic to try and boost revenue?
atoav 1 days ago [-]
Excuse me, but I am not sure what to make of people who:
- use Chrome, by Google, a company earning money with selling ads and wonder why the adblocker is not working
- use Kindle, by Amazon, a company that earns money by renting out DRM-protected content, that sees the Kindle just as a vehicle to (1) sell more of that content and (2) as a vehicle to lock you to their platform
Please for the love of the universe, just start to factor in the incentives a company has when selling you a thing. Before buying my Kobo reader 12 years ago (still going strong!), the first thing I researched is how to get out of Amazon DRM hell. The answer is: get a reader by a company that sells readers as a main business and has an incentive to make sure they work and use it together with something like Calibre, so you have all your books if you lose the thing somewhere. If you're going to the powerful quasi-monopolist, that may be cheaper in the short term, but what about the time you lose when they eventually hold your whole library hostage or decide to drop support on something you relied on? You're not the person picking when that happens.
If I sum up how much I spent on books in 12 years that Kobo has paid for itself 50 times over and I still don't think there is any reason to replace it with something newer.
Weryj 1 days ago [-]
If only there was a way to download e-books and upload them to a Kindle with Calibre.
lagrange77 1 days ago [-]
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but there is!
I've jailbroken my Kindle Scribe and installed coreader and feed it my Calibre library and its awesome.
Oh and i kept it in airplane mode from the first day, which is important so it doesnt self update and break the jailbreak.
yuchtman 7 hours ago [-]
Kindles don't need to be jailbroken to transfer books via calibre (or a file manager or a terminal).
Every time they announce new Kindle products, half of the comments are like "I hope they have buttons," "I hope they bring back the Oasis," etc.
But they appear to exult in dashing the hopes of their customers, or at the very least they don't care about them at all. They've doubled down on no-key devices with stupid pens, pointless and poorly-implemented color, and tiny or excessively large form factors with little in between. It's kind of crazy just how much they don't seem to care.
The subtext of the article indicates that the problem isn't discontinuing support alone, but discontinuing support without offering those customers a reasonable replacement for their old devices that had keys and buttons. (Even if it's just a couple of buttons.)
Source? I've never heard of this, and I used to work there, including building the OS from source (though my contributions to the OS were pretty minimal). If you just put a .mobi file onto the storage, how does it have any idea where it came from?
> If you don't allow the device to connect to the internet, yes
Why is that a problem for a device which has been EoL'd?
On the other hand, I view my kindle as an appliance, and I don’t need it to have updated functionality. I think this is true of many electronics: digital cameras, printers, misc USB peripherals, etc. I believe Amazon could easily support the APIs it uses, and keep delivering me books that I’ve paid for or borrowed.
Financially, I suspect the kindle devices have a much longer lifetime than iPhones do, and Amazon is still making $$ off of old kindles.
If there were TLS concerns, a partial disablement (ex: can’t buy books from the device) would be way more acceptable than a complete cutoff. I’ve seen suggestions that it’s a DRM issue, and if that’s the primary motivation, it’s pretty disappointing.
I'm just in the process of developing a lifecycle policy, being able to cut off support for a 12 year systems would make my life much more full of joy.
The phrase that jumps out at me is:
> being able to cut off support for a 12 year systems would make my life much more full of joy
I think this is a nearly-poetical capturing of the core problem.
The focus is on the joy and well-being of the maintainer, not the impact to all the people who will be impacted by this change. Possibly some people rely on these devices and it adversely impact their joy and livelihood when support is ended.
This happens over and over again in tech.
on the other hand, some software gets harder and costlier to support the longer its out there (think spec changes, security issues, updates in law etc), and even paying a normal subscription for it can cause roi to go negative, especially when factoring in opportunity cost for a business (help the old users or spend that time/money making a new feature for the majority)
my thought on it is if its a subscription, maybe for some software, the longer someone uses the old version the subscription cost could go up slowly, or if its a one-time purchase, after x years they could just buy a support ticket or something...? for ad-supported software i have no ideas...
Try estimating doing win11 updates on a 20 year old piece of delphi spftware with hardware full go custom ASICs be expected to lsat?
It’s ok to stop providing updates to old software and hardware.
It’s OK to not support ancient devices when writing news software.
It’s not ok to make old devices inoperable if they are using the old software and don’t need updates.
Will my old Kindle stop being able to show me the books I bought and downloaded to it? Or will it become impossible to buy new books? If it’s the earlier, it’s borderline criminal. If it’s the latter, I’m unhappy but understand realities.
The point is that e-books are basically a data format plus a reader, and if the data format hasn't changed (it hasn't) and a reader is still working, what is gained by preventing that reader from being given new data to present?
amzn doesn't have to "provide support" for old kindles, but they also don't need to prevent them from downloading ebooks.
Until it dies due to unintentional software or hardware defect.
NOT when it is sabotaged by the manufacturer.
You can’t equate that to providing ongoing updates and support for a $100 hardware device indefinitely.
They replaced the product, but they kept buying the parts and updating the software for the old one. And customers were absolutely still sending back their broken ones getting at cost replacements.
It was like looking at a well engineered, thoughtfully maintained hole in the bottom of a cruise liner.
TV, refrigerator, recorder, whatever electronics, broke down and I or my parents would take it to one of several repair locations around town.
Software coming in eproms or disks meant QA was actually a thing to get right, not as online updates that eventually stop.
Now, even Nintendo destroys your hardware if you do something they dont like.
Like every one of these terrible companies, Im 100% sure that if they could update the NES firmware to destroy the console or sabotage it, they would.
(They have also been scanned and are available on archive.org; the copyright is long expired and they're public domain.)
I used to be able to read books on it and watch Netflix.
My iphone is a boat anchor next to the sleek, slick iPod.
Sad even
I think there is a smaller argument that the newer Kindles don't feel as nice. The Oasis was the pinnacle of e-reader hardware design, and it'll be sad when they stop supporting it, but it certainly won't be worthy of a news article or this kind of reaction.
To me it would. If they don't have a similar device released by that time.
It would get me motivated enough to finally de-DRM all the books on my device (or pirate copies I can't otherwise decrypt) and copy them to a third party something like a Kobo Reader or whatnot.
I am firmly in the Kindle ecosystem sort of by accident and inertia, but if they were to end support of the only device that meets my needs (page turn buttons and waterproof - which for the latter to be useful you need the former) it'd be the end of Kindles for me forever, and I'd certainly bitch a lot about it on-line!
If they end support for it 12 year after release but offer a reasonable upgrade path? I'd grin and bear it. 12 years is a decent amount of time for a $200 device.
Yeah, it's the smells wherever you go problem.
WWII fighter plane with red spots on it dot gif.
The vast majority of people who buy Kindles simply read books on them and don’t repeatedly cry online about features that are never coming back.
I’ve bought about 10 of the things dating back to 2012 either because I wanted to have the latest model or because I wanted to give one as a gift. They are all amazing devices.
I’ve never thought, “boy I better go online and complain about this one.” I’ve just been too busy buying and reading books on them!
And the sad part is that there's no best of both. You can't get a kindle paperwhite with buttons.
So until they can figure out how to make touch screen work in those conditions, any device released without page turn buttons is useless to me.
It's not a preference thing for me. It's simply a physical requirement for my environment.
Yes, I do understand I'm a rather niche use-case and don't really expect them to pander to me. But I will be vocal about it just so they know I exist! There are at least dozens of us!
The fact I can continue to buy refurbished Oasis units whenever I leave one in airplane seatback pocket is the only reason I'm still on the Kindle ecosystem. The second I cannot make that work it's off to third party for me and they will lose an infinitesimal portion of their captured audience for future book purchases.
There's multiple touch zones (which aren't visible or marked), there's multiple gestures you can interact with, and it's so slow and janky enough that you never know what will happen when you touch it.
Will it go forwards? Or backwards? By one page? Or a dozen? Will it open the settings? Or change the brightness? Or just close the book? You never know.
I want to lose myself in the book, I want to forget the device even exists, not fight the device for half a minute whenever it decides to go forward by 11 pages, open the settings, change the font and brightness just because I wanted to go one page back
Are you normally reading in a moving vehicle or something?
Indeed I am! My primary use case for the kindle is to use it on the train.
> which has much larger touch zones than the normal Kindle software.
That may actually be the reason why. The regular software is extremely sensitive to gestures and has small touch zones, so it's easy to miss the zone, or trigger a gesture, instead of clicking what you want to click.
I also frequently have to go back a page or two and re-read a section or two, so if I read physical books I always have my fingers placed so I can go back a page or two easily, and on the kindle that works a lot less reliably (especially due to the ~500ms latency on the paperwhite).
Wheras on the Kindle 4 with the forward/back buttons on both sides it was really convenient to actually go back and forth (and instant, as flipping a page back or forth on the kindle 4 never triggered a full display refresh)
Is this something people aren’t supposed to do?
Which I can't with a touchscreen kindle with a "back" zone that's 5mm wide and easy to miss. And even then the back zone only works if I keep the finger perfectly still, as even the slightest movement is interpreted as a "forwards" gesture.
And no, it's not cheaper. They were 40€/80€ back then, which would be 54€ and 108€ respectively, and now the equivalent model costs 109€.
The problem with a buttonless word is that it doesn’t have buttons.
Anyone who’s ever even seen a button from a distance has immediately known a world with buttons is superior to a world without buttons.
is it kindle, no but can i read a book on it yeah. easily.
I’m sure Amazon has enough actual customer data to make their product decisions based on what moves the most volume.
And the reason most phones keep these is because wireless headphones are in the end luxury. They're not necessary, they're not even significantly better, but they're in the end a class symbol.
Also "but people buy it anyway" is terrible way to disregard legitimate criticizm without thinking
To be fair, I don’t think the criticisms are illegitimate by your definition, I just think they’re pointless and from vocal crybabies.
I'm happy there is a mass of popular sentiment that consumer devices are better with buttons. I think they're to whom we can credit the return (or addition of new) buttons to cars, to phones, and to all manner of appliances (induction stoves, thermostats, ACs.)
In either case, it looks like the last Kindle with buttons disappeared only late 2024, a year and a half ago. This was a recent enough phenomena that these complaints make sense. Amazon still has a chance to get with the times and release an eReader with buttons.
There is not. It’s the same 11 people who have a hobby of posting online about how much they miss buttons.
This sentiment is widespread enough to be a common point of comedy and conflict, and it's widespread enough problem that consumer intelligence companies have been reporting on this for years ( https://www.jdpower.com/sites/default/files/file/2025-09/202... , https://www.vibilagare.se/english/physical-buttons-outperfor... , https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/tesla/model-y/2020/road... , etc.) If you spend time in the lobby of a kiosk-only fast-food, you are sure to hear someone complain too.
I know "touchscreens are the future and those button-lovers are rarities who will die out soon" was a popular thing to believe, but that was back in the 00s. People like b uttons.
> dismisses user wishes and calls people “vocal crybabies”
I’m honestly amazed how someone can lack so much self-awareness.
That was in December, I have not bought a single book on Amazon since then, and the kindle app is not installed on my new phone. Just in case anyone from the relevant AMZN department is reading this.
I often laugh (cry) at the Kindle Product Manager team who ship nothing but DRM updates.
How about a dictionary modal where the font is the same size as the page text..? Hard to imagine what they do all day, given they do seem to force updates but nothing seems to improve
I thought that all the major ebook stores had DRM on most purchases, and it was just a few indie publishers choosing to be DRM-free. Has that changed?
Tor books is the largest publisher without it (owned by Macmillan). Otherwise everything is truly hard DRM either ACSM with epub or Kindle's. They are both more or less easily defeated though.
In my experience soft DRM is very common, hard DRM not so much.
All these stories of people who have been using the same Kindle for 15 years is not an Amazon success story because those people have not been buying Kindles. It's true even though Amazon makes far more on the margin of sending special locked up text files that were written by someone else.
On one hand, there's folks using the vendor's OS, which looks like an abandoned custom-made Linux distro, where compiling anything is a nightmare. It's not really made to be hackable, but just to read books purchased via their partners.
OTOH, there's a near-mainline kernel, which works nicely, and hacking on the device becomes much nicer, but e-reader-oriented software seems to commonly rely on kernel APIs only present in the vendor's abandoned fork, and won't work on a more mainline Linux. But this is a great target for actually developing stuff.
I'm tempted to write my own minimal e-reader-focused DE, but honestly, I don't want another project on my hands and would like to use something that's already there.
On the plus side, with your setup, you can have the lowest friction ebook experience possible on planet Earth by installing koreader, and then the z-library plugin.
Kindles last a month on a charge or two. It's very light. It's affordable.
It doesn’t show colors, but I have an android tab to read papers and technical content, anyway.
I tried looking at alternatives, but low price + extreme power efficiency + being able to sideload books is just great.
Also, koreader!
BTW, slapping a pop socket on the back so I can comfortably read with one hand was a game changer.
The newer battery is nice and usb-c is a big upgrade instead of finding my last mini usb (or whatever it was). I think I'm down to just one last thing on that stupid cable (a camping lantern).
In contrast, my iPhone changes with each update, but often I find not for the better – I hated the new control center at first, and while I made it mostly match the old one, the tap targets are smaller than they used to be, on my 4.7” display.
My current kindle is my third one, and is the last. I will never ever pay for a kindle to Amazon, due to its user hostility.
Oh, and also you cannot move ebooks between accounts, even not with a lot of friction, eg. support tickets, which would be a fair way to game piracy and unwanted lending, which was some inconvinience for me in a situation. Not a huge monetary loss for me, rather a reminder that when you pay to Amazon (or Valve, or any other contemporary DRM-burdened vendor) you are only leasing...
Just US and UK have family accounts.
I keep it offline in airplane mode permanently from 2016 and haven't seen a single ad in a long long time.
I have my 2016 one setup without a password so when I open my cover the device unlocks, so I never really even see the ad unless I try.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
And it’s an ad on the lock screen, not an ad interrupting your reading. I buy the ad free versions though.
The ads are only shown while it's off, they're static black and white images, and 99% of the time they're for books. Totally unobjectionable.
If they were in the actual UI and for stuff like cars and perfume I might mind, but they aren't so I never cared.
Speak for yourself. Aside from the principle, some of us don’t want to be advertised to in the comfort of our own home/bed/while we’re camping or whatever. Ads don’t have to be actively flashing, spaz-inducing insanity to be objectionable.
Not to mention that by definition an ad like this WILL be seen and attended to, even if only momentarily. That in itself is also objectionable.
If you don’t want ads just buy the no ad version.
If you use your kindle in case you’ll never see the ad because by the time you open the cover it’s gone.
But what a sad world we live in…
But then I also understand that'd increase the price by 10% and only help right handed people with weak hands so... c'est la vie.
You can... turn them upside down to become a left-handed device. That way you can be weak-handed with either hand!
If you turn it upside down the left hand buttons will be way too high on the reader
Those have been around since day 1 afaik - my second gen kindle had them over ~12 years ago
I had a pocket book 2 for 15+ years but destroyed the display recently :/
Looking for a replacement now that is black&white, has a very good paper like screen, long battery life and allows me to read any .epub/.mobi without DRM or other bs restrictions.
I don’t need colour screen, don’t need audio support and no integrations with any shops or anything like that.
Kindle is ruled out, I looked at Kobo but the screen appeared low quality compared to my old pocket book.
Anything you can recommend here?
Pocket Book still makes eink ereaders, though. Is there something wrong with their offerings if you stuck with one of their products for 15 years?
I’ll also take a look at the newer pocket books - I only stuck so long with my old one because it worked perfectly fine and there was no reason to get a new device.
I can just get the Ebook or PDF files and transfer them via Calibre, simple as that, and I can also download any Android app i want. There are tons of apps out there that support eInk screens.
[1] https://shop.boox.com/products/go7
https://www.xteink.com/products/xteink-x4
I have a Kobo I keep at home. I love it, but don’t want to risk breaking it while carrying it around in my backpack, and it’s too big to comfortably hold on a crowded BART (let alone to dig around in my bag to get it out and put it away). The X4 is always in my pants pocket during the commute and small enough to break out wherever I am. Also, it’s small enough to not feel fragile, and cheap enough that it wouldn’t be devastating if I broke it anyway.
The only missing feature is a backlight for reading at night.
https://kindlemodding.org/
They aren’t bricking the devices, they are making them not work with the Amazon store and library features anymore. My Kindle Keyboard (3rd generation device) still works perfectly well with sideloaded books. It’s jailbroken and runs KOReader, which lets you read ePub directly.
It’s easier to read things on my Kindle Keyboard than on my original iPad.
Yes, like many industries I have worked in I can imagine that they are unable to cooperate because of petty greed and short-sightedness: they would rather have the whole market taken away from them than endure the possibility that some of their direct competitors get a small, temporary advantage.
It should not be hard to create truly interoperable systems that can cut Amazon out of the equation. It isn’t a technology issue. We have technology that easily solves every conceivable aspect of distributing, paying for and consuming ebooks.
This should be the ultimate opportunity for the publishing industry. Especially given that Amazon isn’t investing much in development of devices.
(Though even if that is the case, I'd still think they could have at least agreed on open standards to use, to prevent anyone like Amazon from creating vendor lock-in.)
But Amazon had advantages from its size. In terms of economies of scale for device manufacturing, publishers could have somewhat caught up if they pooled money to invest in a co-owned company that made devices (though still wouldn't have had such an advantage as Amazon, who could share R&D and production costs with any overlaps to other devices such as smart home speakers, Android tablets, etc.) But Amazon was also able to take a bigger picture approach, using cheap Kindles/ebooks to attract people into their ecosystem and then converting a not-insignificant amount of them to buying other stuff on Amazon.
Brazilian Government just released a great public library of e-books: https://meclivros.mec.gov.br/
An Android e-ink reader would be perfect for it. And I'd use kindle app to read my kindle ebooks. But I don't really see people using them.
For actually reading ebooks, I'm using Koreader instead of the built-in reader because I find the UI a bit easier to get my head around. I mostly use it for PDFs related to classroom learning, but have the odd epub knocking around from project gutenburg etc.
It has Google Play support, so I can use the Libby app to access my local library's ebook collection (including offline access to travel guides - so useful). I also use the Sefaria app to read Hebrew scripture (also supports offline). These apps tend to use the battery faster than Koreader and having scrolling controls instead of page-turning controls is a bit of a pain, but quite manageable.
I haven't tried the Kindle app, but I'm sure it would work fine.
https://www.reddit.com/r/xteinkereader/
It’s like an entrepreneur with social media marketing skills came across a container full of really cheap small eink displays, then designed a product and marketing around it.
The build quality could be better, but there doesn't exist a similar product with better build quality.
Can you build a DIY version that's significantly cheaper?
Well, this was my thinking for getting one, we shall see when it arrives :P
Edit: Also you can choose to install a nice open source community firmware
It's 10 inches, which I find to be a bit too large for an E-Reader. But for surfing the web and note taking this is a terrific device. Boox has smaller Android devices.
I don't know if I love it yet but I read seven ebooks in a month on it, so I guess it's been a good purchase. The android kindle app has a neat smooth scrolling feature that works really well.
You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain.
Planned obsolescence is always bad.
Err, no. Something “existing” is not the same as something being supported. Is the original printer still providing free translations to modern languages? Fixing typos and other mistakes? Adding chapters on a regular basis?
It’s kinda ludicrous to call the fact that a thing didn’t spontaneously disappear “support”.
Given, the kindle won't last 500 years, but the support window is in some senses longer than for those 500-year-old books, which never received a single security update.
Like great jokes, it has a point.
14 year support window is pretty good. Not being able to get a modern device with buttons, and having no way to read your books with buttons, isn't.
If your product doesn't work without support, you have villain aspects from day 1.
I do get the argument about lockdown. And there's some mediums I feel more strongly in that area. I suppose Amazon just has me exactly where they want me :)
it magically started keeping charge recently and is working as i last remembered. i haven't been keeping tabs but the underlying computing of these kindles has been largely the same, TI-84 like, outdated scrap that happens to be enough for the slow refreshing screens.
while it's unlikely for anyone here complaining to own an affected device (that is still their daily driver), i hope they do have a major overhaul incoming which necessitates this. the main pain point with access to your purchases is indeed frustrating, but very few things in computing has lasted me this long.
We have several different ecosystem e-readers in our household and all are used via USB and Calibre. The "extra time used" is won by multitude with approach where the reading stays in the center and uploading is once in a while event.
This creates a barrier for addictive bookshopping, though a reader with plenty of books allows the change of minds, not just the endless booscrrolling that a connected device enables.
Now a fourth one (Kobo) in use and all the previous ones still fully functional and in use by close ones.
Removing some old book I had was the first major red flag.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20297331
Go to your router settings and blacklist the Kindle's mac id.
Sleep peacefully that your kindle will never be bricked or wiped by a software update.
Wasn't the original concept of the Kindle that it shouldn't need to be replaced by newer models?
Why -- Aren't they also claiming productivity enhancements with AI? ;-)
And did they calculate how much environmental damage may result the decision?
What is discontinued is integration with Amazon account. Which seems fair to me to be fair.
An original-model Kindle has more of its original functionality than an original-model iPad.
But all you are losing is the ability to use the Amazon store and borrowing that requires DRM. It still works fine as an e-Ink reader.
Anecdotally, the OSes on the really old ones are easily jailbroken. They have never updated them to an unbreakable one that I am aware of.
More than I can say for my first-gen iPads, which would still be wonderful devices for reading books today. I have a Kindle because it is, and long has been, the cheapest e-Ink device. It’s my reading-outdoors device; I don’t use it except at the beach/pool.
From day 1 it was super laggy. Once I opened a book to read it was fine, but everything up to getting to that point was lag upon lag.
This was a new device of a new generation.
I find the Kindle UX better on my iPhone or iPad.
Totally agree that a manufacturer should provide both options - I'm just surprised to have non-standard preferences.
Its clock no longer tells correct time; but it’s fine, a book doesn’t have to do that - and I have a watch.
Turn the page
Ofc there's the high seas, but I'd quite like to support the authors and I can afford ~£10 for a book now and then. But are there any stores as good/convenient as the Amazon one?
I make a lot of use of my local library through the native Overdrive integration.
This is somewhat annoying. Please don't offer only one storefront as a place to buy your work.
It's like people have to be taught the same lesson about SAAS over and over and over again. Like what did they expect, to not get rug pulled eventually? Crazy. You own your shit or you don't. Simple as.
For some reason, they're inclined to trust Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Kindle/dp/B0CNVCQZG1/
This is the first one that pops up if you search "kindle" on Amazon.
I'm not sure how more clearly you could show the variants with and without ads.
Damn near impossible to find DRM free books to purchase though.
My method has always been to buy physical books (which is also better to support the author, because they get a bigger % of the price you pay.
And then, there are other creative ways to download the ebook... (without buying from Amazon, or other monopolists.)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Calibre/comments/1q1uza4/successful...
If publishers/authors want my money, they can release a version without DRM.
Calibre web and calibre web automated downloader remove a fair bit of the clunk.
Ironically, files downloaded from "other" sources have no issue. So they're just making it harder to buy from Amazon legally.
Primarily use two of these for a prepper book cache. (Two is one and one is none.) The battery lasts about a month on low cost chargers, and a pair of 32GB SD cards holds my entire collection. (A redundant pair since two is one.) Whole thing sits in an EMP bag in the bugout bag of my car, so I always have my library everywhere I go.
Exporting to PDF used to be pretty straightforward; the newest encryption is a lot harder to bypass but is still possible:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Calibre/comments/1q1uza4/successful...
After the announcement I decided to switch to physical books
Been super happy with my Kobo Clara.
Got a USB expander dongle on AliExpress for something like six bucks that breaks out a few USB 2 ports and the Kobo is happy as a clam. So am I now, because the Kobo is great.
It’s not too disgusting, and over-the-air is nice to have.
- use Chrome, by Google, a company earning money with selling ads and wonder why the adblocker is not working
- use Kindle, by Amazon, a company that earns money by renting out DRM-protected content, that sees the Kindle just as a vehicle to (1) sell more of that content and (2) as a vehicle to lock you to their platform
Please for the love of the universe, just start to factor in the incentives a company has when selling you a thing. Before buying my Kobo reader 12 years ago (still going strong!), the first thing I researched is how to get out of Amazon DRM hell. The answer is: get a reader by a company that sells readers as a main business and has an incentive to make sure they work and use it together with something like Calibre, so you have all your books if you lose the thing somewhere. If you're going to the powerful quasi-monopolist, that may be cheaper in the short term, but what about the time you lose when they eventually hold your whole library hostage or decide to drop support on something you relied on? You're not the person picking when that happens.
If I sum up how much I spent on books in 12 years that Kobo has paid for itself 50 times over and I still don't think there is any reason to replace it with something newer.
Voice input or autocorrect?