When the clock touches the 12th hour, this Kindle e-reader will transform from Cinderella
into a brick. And this ain't no fairytale.
Amazon is officially killing support for pre-2013 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 ColorSoft,
you guys pointed out that there are plenty of e-reader options out there
and none of them seem as restrictive as Amazon's Wald 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
to our sponsor. 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 deregistering the device, either through your device options or a factory reset,
will make it so that you cannot re-register or use it in any way.
So, bricked. By comparison, Amazon's biggest competitor,
Kobo, takes an approach that feels downright open.
For instance, Kobo also has DRM protection
for e-books from its store, but they have a first party guide
that tells customers how to read those DRM e-books
on third party devices. And the way that Kobo plays nice with other platforms
makes its own devices way easier to use in the first place.
With a Kobo, if I want to get a DRM free e-book
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 e-books 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 e-books 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?
Kobo, 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 Kobo Clare AW
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, Kobo, and Libby as apps,
and then have access to everything on one device. Then, going forward, you can obtain e-books
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 six-inch reader,
and at $149 is just $20 more than the Kindle.
Though, again, this is compared to the one that doesn't belch ads in your face.
Both Kobo and books have alternatives to higher-end Kindles as well,
like the Scribe, which has a touchscreen and stylus, and the Kindle ColorSoft, which is in color.
If neither of those sound right for you, though, Pocketbook, Bigney, and Nook are also around,
but while each of them does have their die-hard fans,
none of them seem to have reached the same critical mass as Kobo or books.
Of course, none of what I've talked about so far helps the folks whose devices are being bricked.
Amazon said, ha-ha, 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 deregistered, you can side load eBooks to your Kindle
with the third-party tool, Caliber. We're gonna 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 for the asterisk
that you might have noticed before it 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 side loading 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 side loading tomfoolery
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 pre-2013 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-mole
with the Kindle modding community. So jailbreaking guides become obsolete very quickly,
but it looks like Kindle firmware below 5.18.6
can be jailbroken, which expands your device compatibility.
So you don't need a special app to side load 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, purchase Amazon books on your device
if it's been deregistered, 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 pre-2013 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 Kobo.
No, not Kobo. 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 hell bent 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, 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. And this is an unfortunate segue to our sponsor.
If you guys enjoyed this video, my son did his first review for the channel recently.
He was actually on the Kindle ColorSoft. He liked the device,
but didn't like the way that Amazon treats customers that are locked into their ecosystem.
That's my boy.