When the clock touches the 12th hour,
this Kindle e-reader will transform from
Cinderella into a brick.
And this ain't no fairy tale. Amazon is
officially killing support for pre203
Kindle devices on May 20th, 2026.
To be fair, 14 years is a pretty good
run for a modern device. But the part
that sucks here is that it doesn't have
to be this way. It's not like books are
getting any longer. It should be able to
open the same file formats that it
always has. And yet, due to the nature
of Amazon's locked down ecosystem,
this perfectly functional piece of tech
is counting down its days to the dump.
And this isn't the first time that
Kindle services have changed the rules
after you've given Amazon your money.
So, here's an idea. Let's stop doing
that. It's an area that I haven't
personally really explored before, but
after our recent video on the Kindle
Coloroft, you guys pointed out that
there are plenty of e-reader options out
there, and none of them seem as
restrictive as Amazon's walled garden.
So, let's talk about what Amazon's
doing, why its Kindle ecosystem kind of
sucks, and how you can turn the page on
the Kindle chapter of your life. But
first, let's turn the page on this segue
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Before we get into the alternatives, I
want to cover off some of the finer
details of Amazon's upcoming old yeller
here. First, while it is true that you
will no longer be able to purchase,
borrow, or download books from affected
devices, you can still read books that
you have already downloaded to the
device. However, even that saving grace
is pretty hollow since Amazon says that
dregistering the device either through
your device options or a factory reset
will make it so that you cannot
reregister or use it in any way. So,
bricked. By comparison, Amazon's biggest
competitor, Coobo, takes an approach
that feels downright open. For instance,
Coobo also has DRM protection for ebooks
from its store, but they have a
first-party guide that tells customers
how to read those DRM ebooks on
third-party devices. And the way that
Coobo plays nice with other platforms
makes its own devices way easier to use
in the first place. With a Coobo, if I
want to get a DRM free ebook from some
other store, I can plug it in, drag and
drop my files to it, and that's it. It's
good to go. Meanwhile, Amazon does allow
a few file types to be dragged and
dropped, but generally relies on the
send to Kindle online tool that only
works when your device is registered and
online. And since that's the only
official way to add third party ebooks
to Kindle, come May, you might be plum
out of luck. That is, unless you're
willing to open up a pathway to
abilities that some might consider to be
unnatural.
More on that later. First, aside from
making your files easy to move around,
Kobos also have native Libby
integration, so you can just download
ebooks from your local library directly
to your device. Kindles, meanwhile, can
use Libby as well, but it's a little
convoluted, requiring you to borrow from
another device before syncing because, I
don't know, screw anything that doesn't
give Amazon an extra buck, right? Coobo
so far kind of looking like a no-brainer
here. Having its own ecosystem means you
keep all the ease of use benefits of a
Kindle, but without giving up the
freedom to take your stuff and move on
later. And did I mention that the
entry-level Cobalt Clar costs just $10
more than the cheapest Kindle? Or at
least the cheapest Kindle that doesn't
fart ads in your face every time you use
it. Of course, there are other options,
including one that is even more open.
Books, or as I like to call it, Books
with its Android based e-readers, just
does away with ecosystems entirely. That
could make it the easiest possible
transition if you want to bring your old
libraries with you since you can just
download Kindle, Coobo, and Libby as
apps and then have access to everything
on one device. Then going forward, you
can obtain ebooks however you see fit
and read them in a third party reader
app. The Books Go 6 would probably be
the most basic Kindle-like 6-in reader
and at $149 is just $20 more than the
Kindle. Though again, this is compared
to the one that doesn't belch Chads in
your face. Both Coobo and Books have
alternatives to higherend Kindles as
well, like the Scribe, which has a
touchcreen and stylus, and the Kindle
Coloroft, which is in color. If neither
of those sound right for you, though,
Pocketbook, Biggney, and Nook are also
around. But while each of them does have
their diehard fans, none of them seem to
have reached the same critical mass as
Coobo or Books.
Of course, none of what I've talked
about so far helps the folks whose
devices are being bricked. Amazon said,
"Haha, too bad. Go buy a new one." And
so far, we've offered just more of the
same. Is there an alternative to
spending more money right now? Actually,
yes. Even if it's been dregistered, you
can sideloadad ebooks to your Kindle
with the third party tool, Caliber.
We're going to link a detailed guide in
the description down below, but pretty
much all you need to do is connect your
Kindle via USB and click send to device
in the application. It will
automatically convert ebooks to a file
that your Kindle can read, and you
should be good to go. It is worth
noting, we don't know for sure that this
is going to continue to work after
Amazon's sunset date. That's where the
asterisk that you might have noticed
before comes in. But we think that it
should still be okay. We bought this old
Kindle Touch on Marketplace. We left it
unregistered and we tried caliber
sideloading on it. There wasn't a
problem. Then we tried the same process
on an unregistered Kindle Scribe and our
file opened just fine. So Amazon surely
knows about all of this unregistered
sideloading tom foolery and hopefully
doesn't intend to block it, but probably
just didn't want to acknowledge it
publicly. So, it may be then,
ironically, that the only ebooks that
you can't read on your pre203 Kindle
will be Kindle ebooks. If you're the
daring type, you do have other options.
You could just jailbreak your Kindle. I
actually didn't know this was a thing,
but depending on your firmware version,
it may be possible. Amazon is constantly
playing whack-a-ole with the Kindle
modding community, so jailbreaking
guides become obsolete very quickly. But
it looks like Kindle firmware below
5.18.6 6 can be jailbroken, which
expands your device compatibility, so
you don't need a special app to
sideloadad anything. You can just drag
and drop files. And it can even let you
do things like remove ads for free. Of
course, as far as we can tell, none of
this will help you read purchased Amazon
books on your device if it's been
dregistered, but hey, there you go. Now,
we're not going to go into detail about
how to do a jailbreak today, but there
is a healthy community around modding
Kindles that includes a dedicated wiki,
and ZDNet has a great walkthrough where
they jailbroke a pre203 Kindle DX. We're
going to link to both of those in the
video description. Now, at this point, I
want to reiterate that I don't blame
Amazon for wanting to shed some weight
for their development team. As I said
before, 14 years is a long time to
support a device. And some of the
alternative manufacturers we highlighted
today have also ended support for older
products,
including Coobo.
>> NO, NOT COOBO.
>> But the difference, as far as we can
tell, is that those devices retained
their core functionality by accepting
files over USB or manufacturers have
made moves to make them more open. But
because Amazon seems hellbent on locking
their users into their ecosystem,
they've created this problem for
themselves. They are the exception in
the industry now for thinking that it is
okay to render devices unusable in any
way. Now granted, Amazon does sometimes
inch towards good things. They added an
option for DRM free ebooks in the store
just this year, but just last year they
removed the option to download DRM
protected ebooks to your computer. So,
uh,
it does still remain to be seen exactly
what Amazon's bricking is going to look
like here. And they could still do a
better job of this and be a good guy. We
want that. That's actually why we're
making this video before they pull the
plug. But as it looks at the moment,
seems like Amazon is not going to give
up on controlling their users with an
iron fist, which is unfortunate.
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to book a demo. Now, if you guys enjoyed
this video, my son did his first review
for the channel recently. It was
actually on the Kindle Coloroft. He
liked the device, but didn't like the
way that Amazon treats customers that
are locked into their ecosystem.
That's my boy