If you follow this blog you’ve probably sensed a growing level of frustration over the lack of Kindle-related developments in recent years. Everyone seems to be improving their lineup of reading devices except Amazon.
In 2016 Amazon released the first generation Kindle Oasis with a completely new design, and that was the last major change to the Kindle lineup. Since then not much has changed or improved.
Meanwhile other companies are releasing ereaders with a wide range of screen sizes, some have flexible screens that don’t break, others have advanced note-taking abilities like Onyx’s ereaders, and a few companies have started releasing ebook readers with color E Ink screens, like the new Pocketbook InkPad Color.
But year after year Kindles remain the same; Amazon didn’t even bother to release a new Kindle last year. The last “new” model they did release was the Kindle Oasis 3, and basically all they did was re-release the Kindle Oasis 2 with an added warm frontlight.
In early 2019 they released the current entry-level Kindle. The only real improvement was the addition of a frontlight. Everyone else had stopped selling non-frontlit models years ago so they had to “upgrade” it eventually. It still has a lower resolution screen than the first Kindle Paperwhite that was released in 2012 so it’s hard to consider it much of an upgrade at all.
The last biggest change to the Kindle lineup came in 2018 when they released the Kindle Paperwhite 4, and all they did was made it waterproof and added more storage space to accommodate the addition of audiobook support—things that ultimately won’t matter in the slightest to most Kindle users. And it could be argued the screen is actually a slight downgrade compared to the Paperwhite 3 because of the added smudge-prone plastic layer over the screen.
Here’s the list of all the main hardware “upgrades” that Kindles have received over the past half decade:
- They added a frontlight to the entry-level Kindle (but it still has a lower resolution screen than literally every single other ereader on the market).
- They made the Kindle Paperwhite waterproof (how often is that useful?).
- A warm frontlight was added to the Kindle Oasis 3 (three years after other companies started doing it).
- They increased the size of the Kindle Oasis’s screen from 6-inches to 7-inches.
- Audiobook support was added, along with Bluetooth to stream audiobooks (but only Audible audiobooks are supported).
- Increased storage space to 8GB/32GB.
You could argue that most of those changes are irrelevant for the vast majority of Kindle users.
At this point the only ereaders that are evolving slower than Kindles are Nooks, and B&N has pretty much thrown in the towel on developing new Nook hardware. It’s a shame that Amazon would rather make cuckoo clocks that support Alexa than improve the Kindle lineup.
An argument can be made…that they simply focus their attention on reading books (and audible now…but, I use my phone for that)….and they do that very well.
I’d be curious to know if their Kindle engineers/developers are even still with Amazon. It could be that most have been phased out and they just don’t have the man-power to even work on new features. I’m sure the Kindle venture is just a small portion of their earnings compared to everything else. (Didn’t they phase out the phone after only a few years? Or am I imagining that they even had a phone.) 🙂
Oh… They had a phone. Yeah, didn’t do well. I think the specs were mediocre (if I remember).
I was always surprised that they never came out with an eink phone.
I think you’re probably right. At the very least whoever was in charge of Kindles back in the Voyage days and earlier certainly isn’t with the company anymore.
I love the size of the Kindle and Kindle Paper white, and don’t see the need for larger screens for my use. But while I was sill working could have used a large screen for PDFs.
I’d argue they really haven’t improved at all.
My Voyage still has the best looking e-reader screen I’ve ever seen.
Glad I have two of them (one for backup)
A lot people feel the same way, that Kindles peaked with the Voyage. Considering it was released in 2014 and they still haven’t been able to match it after 7 years is pretty sad.
You and me both, Roger.
I would love to have a note taking kindle. You did miss the memory upgrade for the Kindle Basic from 4 GB to 8 GB. Something I realize I don´t see much in reviews is the online support that the devices get from their respective distributors. I have only worked with Kindle, but I am impressed by the support that I get. I have tried to see if Kobo has the same support and it doesn´t seem to be there or that easy to find. From their various webpages where you can download apps to send sideloaded books and documents to the web browser extensions. To being able to manage various devices from my amazon account. For example, I got a Kindle for my mom who lives in a different country and I can manage her library easily from my own PC so she doesn´t have to deal with the technical aspects of getting a book and sideloading it. She just sends me the title, I find the book, and in a couple of clicks it´s in her kindle to read. I think that is something that is vital when considering purchasing any e-reader. Amazon does this very well.
The kids version of the entry-level Kindle always had 8GB so I don’t really consider that an upgrade. In fact I don’t personally consider adding more storage space an upgrade at all because I think having 10000 ebooks on a Kindle is just silly. You can’t possibly read a quarter of that many ebooks before the battery wears out. People will bring up audiobooks but really why would anyone need 100 audiobooks all downloaded at the same time anyway. It’s just fake upgrades that companies do because people are conditioned to think they need more storage space. In most cases that matters but when it comes to ebooks it really doesn’t because 3GB is enough to hold a few thousand ebooks.
Let’s… be honest here, 3GB isn’t nearly enough to hold “thousands” of ebooks. The average ebook size isn’t 1MB.
For reference, my PW3 is full of about 3.7GB storage (I deleted the system files related to audio playback for space) with about 800 ebooks, and that’s just a lighter end in filesizes.
True, ebook files do keep getting larger all the time. It used to be common for them to be 1.5mb or less. Even still I doubt very many people own thousands of Kindle ebooks. I certainly don’t own that many and even if I did I wouldn’t insist on having them all downloaded on my Kindle at the same time.
You make a point. But given that the Kindle also does audio books it is helpful. I also see it as an advantage as now they can add more software features as memory is not an issue. The OS can grow without negatively affecting your storage. Bigger storage is also advantages for books with a lot of images, such as manga/graphic novels and PDFs.
It is amazing that the company with the largest e-book ecosystem has the most stagnant hardware development team( except Nook). Several companies have significant differentiation between their models. Several 10″ models are now available…nothing larger than 7″ from Kindle. It’s hard to believe Amazon has not put forth a large reader since the Kindle DX. Most companies would probably consider it malpractice to not have a larger reader….it seems like they are avoiding total domination of the e-reader hardware market.
What’s amazing to me is…I am sure that the consumer that would plunk down the money for a large reader would also purchase more than average content.
Kindles are not tablets they don’t need to be upgraded that often and the kindle paperwhite 4 is pretty close to perfect I don’t see a need to update if you want a screen with color buy a fire tablet. I have owned a kindle since the first kindle keyboard I’ve never had one that quite working I seem to upgrade when I lose one
I think Amazon just dwelling on laurels and it is just a matter of time when someone like Apple will get into this business and will be able to shake their positions. Apple actually would could be that company but they are not developing Book store, it is present actively at limited amount of markets. B&N with Nook, nothing to talk about, dead.
Just remember Kobo, this company besides of offering their own ebook sales cooperating with local (particular country) markets publishers and brick&mortal booksellers by offering a platform for selling local books (meaning variety of languages) in electronic form. For example, you can log in at Kobo with your credentials of fnac.pt, fnac.com, Livraria Cultura (Brazil). We just need to remember that even with immense Amazon global presence, after all it is a “toilet paper and wash soap” company and ebook store is majorly Anglo-Saxon. They are barely working on customisation of localised content. Check Kobo website, they’ve increased their catalog dramatically with non Anglo-Saxon literature. Basically nobody but Kobo has the biggest motivation to improve their service and devices, they are progressing really well at this field.
I know it sounds like a promo of Kobo but I was trying as real as possible. Basically, I wouldn’t expect any improvement from Amazon any time soon.
I use both kobo and kindle apps on my onyx nova2. I try to be objective as possible, but the kobo app is significantly worse in a number of ways.
I agree that the Kobo app is worse; however, in my opinion, the Kobo devices have the best software, particularly for formatting.
I think it is very helpful to point out the advantages of how each device works, not just the techy stuff. The real world usage is something reviewers often fail t mention. So, its good to bring up these points.. Good to know.
Amazon has no motivation to improve it’s e-readers with its current stand on the market, perception is key, and a lot of people don’t perceive the alternatives.
Personally my Boox can do 99% of anything a kindle can do with a bigger screen and higher resolution and longer battery life.
Whatever extra software feature they add its just another gimmick to lock people in to inferior hardware, and could most likely be replicated by an android app which I’m free to install whenever I need to.
I’ve been reading e-books for more than 20 years and the devices that lasted the longest time while maintaining usability are the more flexible ones in my experience, an OS open to app developers, connectivity options and (preferably) extendable storage capacity are what I look for.
Knowing a device will likely be in use for 5 or more years puts things in perspective for me when weighing cost vs product quality, so even if amazon was putting up new incrementally better devices every year or so I still wouldn’t buy one.
It seems that Amazons emphasis and focus is now on AUDIBLE. More and more people are listening to audiobooks versus reading standard books these days. Just go to Audible and check out how many reviews an audiobook gets versus its physical counterpart. In most cases it’ll be at least five times as much. The popularity of audiobooks has exploded in the past five years and now they are even offering a type of unlimited version with standard Audible memberships. Something that was recently added in the last three months or so. I think this is a big reason why they have stagnated on kindles.
This seems a bit like apple with their iphones where they also have seeemed to decrease in changes with their products reslting in many of their phones to look the same while having not as many breakthrough improvments with their phones anymore.
Have we reached a point that we have pushed hardware to it´s limit to where we won´t see any significant advancements pretty much across the board? Any new advancements are due to just stacking up on current tech so that you have several of them working at the same time. Like CPUs, Can´t make them faster or process more, so they start to group them together. and call that an advancement. But doing so only raises the price of the product, to the point where people aren´t willing to pay more. I think the advancements should be focused on software more than on hardware. I love my Kindle, but it isn´t perfect. It´s not the hardware as much as the software could use some improvements.
I noticed that there is a new firmware update from Kindle. I get the perception that the voiceveiw is slightly better as it is a little more fluid, less robotic.