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I can understand why one would want to move from Kindle to another device, but this article starts by complaining that support is being dropped for devices from

I can understand why one would want to move from Kindle to another device, but this article starts by complaining that support is being dropped for devices from before 2013. I can even understand being upset by this, but I have absolutely no faith that whatever other device I switch to will still be supported in 10+ years. Could be. But I sure wouldn't count on it.

stevekemp 5mo ago
I feel the same way. To be honest I'm on my third kindle, their life-span seems to be about five years for me. I don't love having to replace them, but paying €120 every five years is probably worth it. I mean that's €2/month, and I have a huge library of books which I load via calibre. I read daily, on the bus to work, at home in bed, and while there are "more free" ereaders I've become accustomed to the kindle and have no complaints. If I were not so clumsy they'd last longer, so that's on me. My physical library is pretty big, but being able to carry 50+ books at all times? And have a battery life of a few weeks? (I stay in airplane mode, as I transfer books via the USB cable). It's hard to complain.
- Insanity 5mo ago
  Same boat as you, I'm on my second kindle in 10 years. Absolutely love the device and the convenience of reading on it. Also have a large physical library that I still add to occasionally (esp in relation to the space I have in Condo buildings), but reading on my kindle is my go-to choice.
- broken-kebab 5mo ago
  Let me ask to what exactly have you been accustomed? Reading as such doesn't seem to be different on pretty much any e-reader.
  - stevekemp 5mo ago
    I've become used to the idea of having 10+ books in my bag at a time, instead of having to choose which physical ones to pack. Plus over the years I've gotten very familiar with the UI of the kindles, they're comfortable to hold and work in a way that feels natural and no-effort.
gjsman-1000 5mo ago
What's also not mentioned is that the discontinued devices don't support KFX. KFX is the modern kindle format, AZW meanwhile is heavily PDF-based. KFX was designed ground-up by Amazon, supports every modern feature they could think of, and presumably couldn't be backported to 2013 and earlier Kindles; AZW meanwhile was basically a wrapper around a subset of PDF. KFX is a complete redo, notable enough it's what "Enhanced Typesetting" on every Kindle product page means, not a small DRM upgrade. By doing this, all authors will soon receive guarantees that they will have the full KFX feature set when designing eBooks, and won't break AZW by accident. Trying to point this out though to the "it's about DRM" or "it's about obsolescence" crowd will get you downvoted to oblivion before the truth is even considered (speaking from experience, -4 when I dared suggest legitimate reasons exist) and is a prime example of echo chambers and deeply ingrained bias on this forum.
- Barrin92 5mo ago
  I don't follow the logic here. Users of old devices aren't asking for new features, they're merely asking for their devices not to be bricked. If an author wants to design against a new set of features they can do that, and that book will not be available on older hardware. Just like, if you want to build an Android app against a newer version you can do that without forcing every human being to replace their phone.
  - gjsman-1000 5mo ago
    The old kindles can still read all previously downloaded content. Amazon's warning is literally exactly that - you can't download new books or redownload old books (i.e. AZW versions).
    - Barrin92 5mo ago
      but that has nothing to do with what you just said. How would being able to continue to download, or purchase, old books affect the ability of authors to create books to new standards going forward? It's not like me being able to still buy an ebook version made in 2015 on my device from 2012 going to interfere with you publishing a book in 2026. That's just bricking the device in case the user ever has to reset their device or has not downloaded their library.
chocochunks 5mo ago
Support here is pretty loose. These devices were already not supported in the traditional sense. They were not getting firmware updates, they were just allowed to continue using Amazon's DRM scheme and connect to the store. AFAIK it's still possible to authorize ancient supported ePub readers with Adobe Digital Editions and load up DRMed books from providers like Google Play even with devices like the Sony PRS-505 (e.g,https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/reader-digital-book-prs-series/prs-505/articles/00008103 https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/reader-digital-book...), despite them exiting the market over a decade ago. Kobo also has continued providing firmware updates to devices from 2011, and even their unsupported devices can still load books via ADE or the Kobo Desktop App.
chasil 5mo ago
Buy something that runs the latest LineageOS, and use the Kindle app. If you want greater security, substitute Graphene for Lineage. These will not be e-ink displays, but the longevity is perhaps the longest available from independent vendors.
- fsflover 5mo ago
  If you choose non-e-ink displays, than the best longevity will be for GNU/Linux devices like Librem 11.
  - fmajid 5mo ago
    They likely won't support the Kindle app, however, and the users won't be able to access the books they paid for but don't really own thanks to DRM.
fmajid 5mo ago
Usually an unsupported device stops getting new functionality and security fixes. The unsupported Kindles lose existing functionality, i.e. the ability to add books. Not quite bricked unlike, say, Sonos, but you are limited to the books y already downloaded to them. This is inherent to DRM, and the reason why I would never have considered buying one in the first place. The eReader I have is a PocketBook Versa. Same price as a Kindle, extensible using microSD and I can add my non-DRM books however I want. Fortunately, Apple Books ePub FairPlay DRM is fairly easy to remove, so that's where I buy them.
- Aeolun 5mo ago
  Wait, wut? How would they stop me from adding new book to my kindle? I can just plug into USB and load directly right?
  - fmajid 5mo ago
    Well, I don't have a Kindle, so I can't verify this, but I am basing this from reporting: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98k91yy4z4o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98k91yy4z4o "The move will mean owners of older Kindles, including its earliest models such as the Kindle Touch and some Kindle Fire tablets, will be unable to download new e-books." For a more tech-oriented site, according to Ars Technica Amazon removed the ability to upload over USB: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/04/starting-in-may-pre-2013-kindles-wont-be-able-to-buy-or-download-new-books/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/04/starting-in-may-pre-... "Previously, owners of old Kindles could have worked around this loss of functionality by downloading books locally and transferring them via USB. But Amazon removed the ability to download books to a PC or Mac in February of 2025." I don't like to brag "I told you so" but I saw this coming 16 years ago: https://blog.majid.info/why-i-will-never-buy-a-kindle/ https://blog.majid.info/why-i-will-never-buy-a-kindle/
    - delecti 5mo ago
      Nothing you've quoted is wrong per se, but it's also not the full story. Amazon removed the ability to download files from them to your computer. And they will soon be removing the ability to download files from them directly to older kindle devices. You can still download a MOBI or EPUB from anywhere else online (though I think some older kindles don't support EPUB) and transfer it via USB, and will still be able to after they EOL those older devices.
chmod775 5mo ago
The Kobo Glo, released in 2012, is still getting updates to the latest Kobo firmware version. In fact all Kobo e-ink devices, except the Kobo Mini, wifi, and the original one, are still getting firmware updates. Their android-based tablets with IPS screens are all discontinued though (as far as I am aware). This is more than Amazon ever did. They haven't updated the firmware on some of their devices that are officially "supported" in years.
- MrDOS 5mo ago
  Not to mention that those devices all support regular EPUBs out of the box, and so you can still put new content on them today. Of course, you'll get a bit more out of them if you convert your EPUBs to KEPUBs with Kepubify[0], but the point remains that Kobos are supplemented by their cloud/connected features, not inherently dependent on them. 0: https://pgaskin.net/kepubify/ https://pgaskin.net/kepubify/
- adjejmxbdjdn 5mo ago
  I don’t understand why anyone would choose a Kindle over the Kobo range of devices. When I bought the Kobo Clara it was also a significantly better device purely on hardware specs. It was slightly more expensive, but that’s more than paid for by how long it’s already lasted me, whereas my spouse’s kindle (bought before we discovered Kobo), is already e-waste. Kobo has also officially tied up with iFixit to provide official fixing guides and parts, allowing for relatively inexpensive hardware repair (to be fair, the battery replacement process I went through my device was quite annoying due to the waterproofing layer, but it worked, and my device is much older than their iFixit partnership, so hopefully the newer devices have repairability more in mind).
  - mingus88 5mo ago
    Kobo also integrates with public libraries via Overdrive It’s amazing to check out a book from your library and have it sync to your kobo, all paid for with your library card You literally would have to pay me to go back to a Kindle
SwellJoe 5mo ago
True, but most manufacturers don't go out of their way to break their old devices. Neglect is one thing, this feels more like theft.
- fg137 5mo ago
  What a shame that iPhone 6 cannot install the latest apps from App Store. This is robbery from Apple.
  - yegle 5mo ago
    But iPhone 6 can still download whatever version supported by the latest iOS version on the phone, right?
    - fg137 5mo ago
      That catalog is diminishing if not almost completely gone. Even if an app exists, unless it is (mostly) local, chances are that it's so old that it cannot talk to the remote server using the correct API. For mainstream apps, if it launches at all, many will immediately tell you to upgrade to a newer version otherwise it won't work.
  - RIMR 5mo ago
    There's a world of difference between software dependencies going out of date between many releases and a company deliberately disabling older devices from downloading static ebook files instead of maintaining some sort of basic backward compatibility.
    - fg137 5mo ago
      > maintaining some sort of basic backward compatibility Sounds easy for you to type that out on a forum without having to maintain a two decade old stack, which probably has tons of "software dependencies going out of date"
      - deleted 5mo ago
beej71 5mo ago
> I have absolutely no faith that whatever other device I switch to will still be supported in 10+ years. I don't have that faith either, but it still irks me when good hardware has to get chucked for software reasons. And this goes double for when those software reasons are about stupid-ass DRM. But in this particular instance I don't consider it to be that bad for me personally, since I don't rely on being able to access Amazon DRM books. But a lot of perfectly working devices are going to get landfilled for this.
horsh1 5mo ago
My typewriter has been successfully serviced 45 years after being produced.
- pseudosavant 5mo ago
  True. I would point out that in 45 years ago, in 1981, the typewriter as a product was over 100 years old (first sold 1874). There was a lot of time to standardize by 1981. And there probably haven't been a lot of serviceable pre-1900s typewriters for quite a while. The first Kindle came out in 2007. Who knows what an e-reader will be like in 2107?
- johngossman 5mo ago
  I got it. And I've played a 1905 Martin and you can still plug a 1950s telecaster into a 1950s amp in turn plugged into wall power and everything works. Just saying, that is not the consumer electronics world in 2026.
  - pseudosavant 5mo ago
    The amp would only be working if it had repairs multiple times by now though. Capacitors don't last 75 years, and tubes last much shorter than capacitors. A replacement set of tubes for a 1950s Fender amp costs $200-$400 today, just for parts. A lot more than a new Kindle. A Kindle might even be less e-waste than a set of tubes too.
poulpy123 5mo ago
I can still read my decade old books
azeirah 5mo ago
reMarkable is doing a decent job, their first generation device launched in 2017. Still getting updates. It is discontinued for sale, but there is no reason to believe reMarkable will stop updating their other devices if they're _still_ updating a device they don't even sell anymore. On top of that, their aftermarket and open source situation is pretty good. They're not ideal e-readers though, but if you're in the market for a good e-ink device with long-term support and that works well with calibre? Might be worth a look.
- Insanity 5mo ago
  until the software compatibility with the older model compromises the newer models. Kudos for them for still updating a device no longer on sale, but Apple does the same, until it doesn't. The fact that they are still updating the first generation today does not mean they will do so tomorrow. That said, remarkable are great devices as well.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
culi 5mo ago
Not the same thing. Those old devices are essentially being bricked. You will no longer be able to sign into them. Amazon is offering a 20% discount to owners of those devices to switch to any other modern kindle.
xboxnolifes 5mo ago
What is the support burden? It needs to be able to sync with your ebook library. Thats it. Kindles aren't like phones and computers, you dont need an upgrade every few years because software consumes the latest hardware. They just open epub files.

stevekemp 5mo ago

I feel the same way. To be honest I'm on my third kindle, their life-span seems to be about five years for me. I don't love having to replace them, but paying €120 every five years is probably worth it. I mean that's €2/month, and I have a huge library of books which I load via calibre. I read daily, on the bus to work, at home in bed, and while there are "more free" ereaders I've become accustomed to the kindle and have no complaints. If I were not so clumsy they'd last longer, so that's on me. My physical library is pretty big, but being able to carry 50+ books at all times? And have a battery life of a few weeks? (I stay in airplane mode, as I transfer books via the USB cable). It's hard to complain.

Insanity 5mo ago
Same boat as you, I'm on my second kindle in 10 years. Absolutely love the device and the convenience of reading on it. Also have a large physical library that I still add to occasionally (esp in relation to the space I have in Condo buildings), but reading on my kindle is my go-to choice.
broken-kebab 5mo ago
Let me ask to what exactly have you been accustomed? Reading as such doesn't seem to be different on pretty much any e-reader.
- stevekemp 5mo ago
  I've become used to the idea of having 10+ books in my bag at a time, instead of having to choose which physical ones to pack. Plus over the years I've gotten very familiar with the UI of the kindles, they're comfortable to hold and work in a way that feels natural and no-effort.

gjsman-1000 5mo ago

What's also not mentioned is that the discontinued devices don't support KFX. KFX is the modern kindle format, AZW meanwhile is heavily PDF-based. KFX was designed ground-up by Amazon, supports every modern feature they could think of, and presumably couldn't be backported to 2013 and earlier Kindles; AZW meanwhile was basically a wrapper around a subset of PDF. KFX is a complete redo, notable enough it's what "Enhanced Typesetting" on every Kindle product page means, not a small DRM upgrade. By doing this, all authors will soon receive guarantees that they will have the full KFX feature set when designing eBooks, and won't break AZW by accident. Trying to point this out though to the "it's about DRM" or "it's about obsolescence" crowd will get you downvoted to oblivion before the truth is even considered (speaking from experience, -4 when I dared suggest legitimate reasons exist) and is a prime example of echo chambers and deeply ingrained bias on this forum.

Barrin92 5mo ago
I don't follow the logic here. Users of old devices aren't asking for new features, they're merely asking for their devices not to be bricked. If an author wants to design against a new set of features they can do that, and that book will not be available on older hardware. Just like, if you want to build an Android app against a newer version you can do that without forcing every human being to replace their phone.
- gjsman-1000 5mo ago
  The old kindles can still read all previously downloaded content. Amazon's warning is literally exactly that - you can't download new books or redownload old books (i.e. AZW versions).
  - Barrin92 5mo ago
    but that has nothing to do with what you just said. How would being able to continue to download, or purchase, old books affect the ability of authors to create books to new standards going forward? It's not like me being able to still buy an ebook version made in 2015 on my device from 2012 going to interfere with you publishing a book in 2026. That's just bricking the device in case the user ever has to reset their device or has not downloaded their library.

chocochunks 5mo ago

Support here is pretty loose. These devices were already not supported in the traditional sense. They were not getting firmware updates, they were just allowed to continue using Amazon's DRM scheme and connect to the store. AFAIK it's still possible to authorize ancient supported ePub readers with Adobe Digital Editions and load up DRMed books from providers like Google Play even with devices like the Sony PRS-505 (e.g,https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/reader-digital-book-prs-series/prs-505/articles/00008103 https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/reader-digital-book...), despite them exiting the market over a decade ago. Kobo also has continued providing firmware updates to devices from 2011, and even their unsupported devices can still load books via ADE or the Kobo Desktop App.

chasil 5mo ago

Buy something that runs the latest LineageOS, and use the Kindle app. If you want greater security, substitute Graphene for Lineage. These will not be e-ink displays, but the longevity is perhaps the longest available from independent vendors.

fsflover 5mo ago
If you choose non-e-ink displays, than the best longevity will be for GNU/Linux devices like Librem 11.
- fmajid 5mo ago
  They likely won't support the Kindle app, however, and the users won't be able to access the books they paid for but don't really own thanks to DRM.

fmajid 5mo ago

Usually an unsupported device stops getting new functionality and security fixes. The unsupported Kindles lose existing functionality, i.e. the ability to add books. Not quite bricked unlike, say, Sonos, but you are limited to the books y already downloaded to them. This is inherent to DRM, and the reason why I would never have considered buying one in the first place. The eReader I have is a PocketBook Versa. Same price as a Kindle, extensible using microSD and I can add my non-DRM books however I want. Fortunately, Apple Books ePub FairPlay DRM is fairly easy to remove, so that's where I buy them.

Aeolun 5mo ago
Wait, wut? How would they stop me from adding new book to my kindle? I can just plug into USB and load directly right?
- fmajid 5mo ago
  Well, I don't have a Kindle, so I can't verify this, but I am basing this from reporting: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98k91yy4z4o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98k91yy4z4o "The move will mean owners of older Kindles, including its earliest models such as the Kindle Touch and some Kindle Fire tablets, will be unable to download new e-books." For a more tech-oriented site, according to Ars Technica Amazon removed the ability to upload over USB: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/04/starting-in-may-pre-2013-kindles-wont-be-able-to-buy-or-download-new-books/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/04/starting-in-may-pre-... "Previously, owners of old Kindles could have worked around this loss of functionality by downloading books locally and transferring them via USB. But Amazon removed the ability to download books to a PC or Mac in February of 2025." I don't like to brag "I told you so" but I saw this coming 16 years ago: https://blog.majid.info/why-i-will-never-buy-a-kindle/ https://blog.majid.info/why-i-will-never-buy-a-kindle/
  - delecti 5mo ago
    Nothing you've quoted is wrong per se, but it's also not the full story. Amazon removed the ability to download files from them to your computer. And they will soon be removing the ability to download files from them directly to older kindle devices. You can still download a MOBI or EPUB from anywhere else online (though I think some older kindles don't support EPUB) and transfer it via USB, and will still be able to after they EOL those older devices.

chmod775 5mo ago

The Kobo Glo, released in 2012, is still getting updates to the latest Kobo firmware version. In fact all Kobo e-ink devices, except the Kobo Mini, wifi, and the original one, are still getting firmware updates. Their android-based tablets with IPS screens are all discontinued though (as far as I am aware). This is more than Amazon ever did. They haven't updated the firmware on some of their devices that are officially "supported" in years.

MrDOS 5mo ago
Not to mention that those devices all support regular EPUBs out of the box, and so you can still put new content on them today. Of course, you'll get a bit more out of them if you convert your EPUBs to KEPUBs with Kepubify[0], but the point remains that Kobos are supplemented by their cloud/connected features, not inherently dependent on them. 0: https://pgaskin.net/kepubify/ https://pgaskin.net/kepubify/
adjejmxbdjdn 5mo ago
I don’t understand why anyone would choose a Kindle over the Kobo range of devices. When I bought the Kobo Clara it was also a significantly better device purely on hardware specs. It was slightly more expensive, but that’s more than paid for by how long it’s already lasted me, whereas my spouse’s kindle (bought before we discovered Kobo), is already e-waste. Kobo has also officially tied up with iFixit to provide official fixing guides and parts, allowing for relatively inexpensive hardware repair (to be fair, the battery replacement process I went through my device was quite annoying due to the waterproofing layer, but it worked, and my device is much older than their iFixit partnership, so hopefully the newer devices have repairability more in mind).
- mingus88 5mo ago
  Kobo also integrates with public libraries via Overdrive It’s amazing to check out a book from your library and have it sync to your kobo, all paid for with your library card You literally would have to pay me to go back to a Kindle

SwellJoe 5mo ago

True, but most manufacturers don't go out of their way to break their old devices. Neglect is one thing, this feels more like theft.

fg137 5mo ago
What a shame that iPhone 6 cannot install the latest apps from App Store. This is robbery from Apple.
- yegle 5mo ago
  But iPhone 6 can still download whatever version supported by the latest iOS version on the phone, right?
  - fg137 5mo ago
    That catalog is diminishing if not almost completely gone. Even if an app exists, unless it is (mostly) local, chances are that it's so old that it cannot talk to the remote server using the correct API. For mainstream apps, if it launches at all, many will immediately tell you to upgrade to a newer version otherwise it won't work.
- RIMR 5mo ago
  There's a world of difference between software dependencies going out of date between many releases and a company deliberately disabling older devices from downloading static ebook files instead of maintaining some sort of basic backward compatibility.
  - fg137 5mo ago
    > maintaining some sort of basic backward compatibility Sounds easy for you to type that out on a forum without having to maintain a two decade old stack, which probably has tons of "software dependencies going out of date"
    - deleted 5mo ago

beej71 5mo ago

> I have absolutely no faith that whatever other device I switch to will still be supported in 10+ years. I don't have that faith either, but it still irks me when good hardware has to get chucked for software reasons. And this goes double for when those software reasons are about stupid-ass DRM. But in this particular instance I don't consider it to be that bad for me personally, since I don't rely on being able to access Amazon DRM books. But a lot of perfectly working devices are going to get landfilled for this.

horsh1 5mo ago

My typewriter has been successfully serviced 45 years after being produced.

pseudosavant 5mo ago
True. I would point out that in 45 years ago, in 1981, the typewriter as a product was over 100 years old (first sold 1874). There was a lot of time to standardize by 1981. And there probably haven't been a lot of serviceable pre-1900s typewriters for quite a while. The first Kindle came out in 2007. Who knows what an e-reader will be like in 2107?
johngossman 5mo ago
I got it. And I've played a 1905 Martin and you can still plug a 1950s telecaster into a 1950s amp in turn plugged into wall power and everything works. Just saying, that is not the consumer electronics world in 2026.
- pseudosavant 5mo ago
  The amp would only be working if it had repairs multiple times by now though. Capacitors don't last 75 years, and tubes last much shorter than capacitors. A replacement set of tubes for a 1950s Fender amp costs $200-$400 today, just for parts. A lot more than a new Kindle. A Kindle might even be less e-waste than a set of tubes too.

poulpy123 5mo ago

I can still read my decade old books

azeirah 5mo ago

reMarkable is doing a decent job, their first generation device launched in 2017. Still getting updates. It is discontinued for sale, but there is no reason to believe reMarkable will stop updating their other devices if they're _still_ updating a device they don't even sell anymore. On top of that, their aftermarket and open source situation is pretty good. They're not ideal e-readers though, but if you're in the market for a good e-ink device with long-term support and that works well with calibre? Might be worth a look.

Insanity 5mo ago
until the software compatibility with the older model compromises the newer models. Kudos for them for still updating a device no longer on sale, but Apple does the same, until it doesn't. The fact that they are still updating the first generation today does not mean they will do so tomorrow. That said, remarkable are great devices as well.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

culi 5mo ago

Not the same thing. Those old devices are essentially being bricked. You will no longer be able to sign into them. Amazon is offering a 20% discount to owners of those devices to switch to any other modern kindle.

xboxnolifes 5mo ago

What is the support burden? It needs to be able to sync with your ebook library. Thats it. Kindles aren't like phones and computers, you dont need an upgrade every few years because software consumes the latest hardware. They just open epub files.