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Amazon Releases Upgraded Kindle and Kindle Kids Devices For First Time in Three Years (geekwire.com) 50

Posted by msmash from the kindle-refresh dept.
Amazon unveiled enhanced versions of its Kindle and Kindle Kids e-readers on Tuesday, the first time the tech giant has upgraded its flagship e-reader in nearly three years. From a report: The upgraded Kindle will now include a battery life of up to six weeks, USB-C charging and 16GB of storage. The Kindle Kids version will also come with a one-year subscription to Amazon Kids+. The Kindle will cost $99.99, up from the previous price of $89.99. The Kindle Kids model will cost $119.99, up from $109.99.
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Amazon Releases Upgraded Kindle and Kindle Kids Devices For First Time in Three Years More

Amazon Releases Upgraded Kindle and Kindle Kids Devices For First Time in Three Years

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  • In pour the Amazon affiliate links...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rossdee ( 243626 )

      If it is its not a very good one
      the link doesnt go to the Amazon site

      And why do they refer to is a a flagship - the Kindle Fire devices are more powerful

      • I have a Kindle Fire device that Amazon accidentally sent me. They said not to send it back since it had already been blacklisted. I installed Google services on it to make it usable. Its okay for Web browsing, but I would want to read a book off it. The screen is headache inducing. An actual Kindle is meant for reading books; a Fire is something different.

      • And why do they refer to is a a flagship - the Kindle Fire devices are more powerful

        They are tablets, not readers, because they have lcds, not e-ink. Yes, that's the difference between those things. Yes, it's a sufficiently important distinction to require another name for convenience's sake. However, this new Kindle is not the flagship Kindle regardless; that is Kindle Oasis, which is waterproof and has a frontlight with adjustable color temperature.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by narcc ( 412956 )

        You've completely missed the point of the Kindle.

  • Why would anybody bother upgrading?

    • Re:Expensive and still no color e-ink (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Tuesday September 13, 2022 @12:35PM (#62877865) Homepage
      It seems to me that crisp text, reading in any light, and battery life are more important than color. You are missing the point if you think color while reading a book matters. Well I suppose if you are reading a comic book... maybe this isn't for you.

      • You'll find that a book has an even better battery life, with the average flashlight added for night time reading still providing a far superior battery/hour rate.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Ksevio ( 865461 )

          But it only has one story in it, then you have to go to a library/store to get a new one

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AuMatar ( 183847 )

          Actually the flashlight would likely use batteries far faster, as its light isn't as concentrated as the backlight, causing it to have to put out far more light to compensate, causing higher battery use. And I've yet to find a physical book that can change into any of a few thousand other books without taking up additional room.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by sgage ( 109086 )

          I love books, actual physical books. I love creamy paper, and beautiful black ink. I love fonts, and book design. I love the smell of 'em. I worked in an old-school independent bookstore for several years, back in the 1970's when the publishing industry was, um, different - vibrant and exciting. I have hundreds of books around here. But... most of them I simply couldn't read anymore due to medical conditions affecting my eyes, and I was sad.

          Until a couple of years ago, when a few of my nieces and nephews go

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dargaud ( 518470 )
          Your mileage may vary. I can't stand paper books anymore. They keep getting heavier and bigger and often printed with too stiff bindings: I get cramps in my hands from holding them after a while. They are also wasteful in terms of dead trees. I can also read at night without bothering my light sleeper of a wife with a light in her face. No, you'd have to pry my kindle off my dead hands (I'm sure other models are equally good though, so not an advertisement).
        • Yeah, but the light is harsh and not as controllable.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fazig ( 2909523 )
      No idea why someone who already owns a Paperwhite would upgrade.
      I got the Kindle Paperwhite 2021 which was the first one to come with an USB-C connector. The battery life and storage are perfectly fine for my purposes, since all the eBooks are pretty tiny anyway. It's the "flagship" e-reader mostly for its battery life due to the special purpose design where you can take it somewhere on a full charge where there's no opportunity to recharge it and have it last you a couple of weeks (backlight turned off an

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by narcc ( 412956 )

        I still use my Kindle 3. I have one of those magnetic power adapters in the micro usb port to keep it from wearing out just from normal charging. Not that I need to charge it often. It'll still go 2 weeks between charges, which is impressive given how old it is now.

        I see absolutely no reason to upgrade. It still works just fine and I love the physical page-turning buttons and the full keyboard. I do not need or want a touchscreen here.

      • Mine is almost ten years old and I'm considering upgrading for a fresh battery, so I can get back to it lasting a month on a single charge. If the UI is more responsive that'd be a big plus as well. I definitely wouldn't be disposing of the old one though, that'd get passed down to a kid.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AuMatar ( 183847 )

      Expensive? It's under $100. For what it does it's reasonably priced. I'm actually considering getting one just because its USB-C, so I can use the same cords to power it as my phone and get rid of the last micro-USB cables in my house.

      Kindle is kind of in the situation where there really isn't much to improve on in the hardware. Battery life is great. It provides clear text well. I don't want it to become a tablet, if I wanted that I'd buy a tablet. Color wouldn't actually improve it as I'm reading b

    • An ebook is like a pair of headphones... upgrading every time they come out with a new model would be silly, but they need to update the new models to make sense with current supply chains and parts, and some mild competition on specs.

    • Because these will be marginally better than the kinds of shit Amazon released a few years ago. Yay for slightly improved mediocrity!

  • "the first time the tech giant has upgraded its flagship e-reader in nearly three years."

    That's not the flagship one, that's the normal one.

  • I still love my Kindle Keyboard from 2010. Interestingly, many specs have not progressed much in these 12 years: the battery life was advertised as 2 months and the internal storage a not far-off 4GB.
    What's more, my version has 3G with a free international plan for life. When I say "for life" it's not actually for much longer, as 3G networks are being deprecated, however it has saved me numerous times in my travels. I had found myself on the road in some foreign country several times without any access to W

    • If my dog hadn't eaten my third-gen kindle (w/ keyboard and actual page turn buttons), I'd happily still be using it. That was the best iteration of the device, in my opinion.

    • Same, but I don't have the 3G (which would have been cool). I, too, have a case with a light, and would prefer a built-in light, but I don't think spending $100 is justified to get it. Everything else is awesome about it.

  • Need an updated kindle, a thing that literally displays pages from a book. Gee I wonder why?

    Maybe it has something to do with the complete shitting of the UI they did a few months ago. The one that absolutely FUCKED navigation because it's so slow. You know, because displaying 10 text titles that you can page swipe through in seconds and replacing it with a tiny area of an arrow down or up that takes seconds to load every time, loads six text titles, AND of those six title one usually gets recycled from the

  • I love my Voyage, and still see no reason to get an "upgrade". USB-C would be nice, but certainly not worth replacing my Voyage completely.

    • A few years ago, the screen on my Voyage broke due to an accident. Instead of buying the then-new Oasis, I bought a used voyage with a bad mainboard for cheap, and did a screenswap.

      A few weeks ago, my Voyage was lost/stolen. Instead of buying any other brand, or the Oasis, or the new Paperwhite, I bought a used Voyage.

      USB-C, red backlighting, faster refresh rates, would all be great. Why stick with the Voyage?

      One main reason: The cover. There is no e-reader on the market with a high quality, symmetrical ori

      • The boat where I work uses these wallpapered sheet metal "yachtwalls." The magnetic cover of my Voyage will let me just stick it right to the wall and holds it there while I read. I'd add the water resistance of the current Kindles to the list of features I'd like to seen in a new version of the Voyage, but, like you, I don't want to get anything that's less than my Voyage to add these minor upgrades.

  • Somehow managed to miss the important point: "Now with 300 ppi High-Resolution Display [...]"

    https://press.aboutamazon.com/... [aboutamazon.com]

    The 16GB storage isn't bad either. I thought is was missing the reading light, but seems to be there: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09S... [amazon.com]

    I have a Kobo Clara HD, and this seems to match it at a better price.

  • ...but the stupid "blue light" sucks. Why can't they put an amber light in there?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dargaud ( 518470 )
      ...it might be different between models, but why do you say it's blue ? It looks quite neutral / yellowish to me. I use it in complete darkness often without problem.
  • I find it hard to believe that the kindle's UI is the best they could come up with.
    Maybe there are reasons I am not aware of for its crappiness?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kwerle ( 39371 )

      I have a kindle and I really enjoy reading on it. But the UI (other than flipping pages) totally blows.

      It'd be shocking if I were not so used to UI sucking.

  • The problem with this is your are tied into the Amazon walled garden with no options. I know these are ereaders with epaper but for me the best option was a third party option. I just bought a Lenovo tablet, LCD, and put the Amazon and Nook applet on it, plus Moon+ Reader Pro. I get to pick and chose where I buy my books from.

    • The Lenovo is still a tablet, though, not really a direct Kindle competitor. I bought a Kobo Clara; you can buy books off the Kobo store, which is similar to Amazon's walled garden, or just drop ePubs into it. I think it links up to Overdrive, but I haven't needed to try yet. Small screen on the Clara, but Kobo makes other models.
    • Honestly most of the content I read on my Kindle comes from Libby / Overdrive, but you can also drop PDFs and other formats on there, either via email, USB, or applications. You don't really need to pay Amazon anything to end up with lots of content on it.

      • Yeah, "walled garden" isn't really very accurate in terms of Kindles and Amazon. Most of the stuff I have on my kindles wasn't purchased through Amazon. I guess you can't install an application for another storefront on it, but I usually do all my purchases through a PC and then send them to my Kindle anyways.

        • Can you use something like Calibre to convert epub etc into something you can load onto the Kindle? I used to love the Sony eReaders, but they have long been out of that business, and I was just considering getting a new device.

  • Its not the first upgrade in 3 years, they had a new version in 2021 that added USB-C for the first time.

  • Now that both Apple and Google require Amazon to kick back 30% of Kindle sales from apps running on those devices, they have much more incentive to move readers onto non-iPad/Android devices.
  • I may misunderstand this, but if this is a machine targeted at kids, and therefore people who don't have credit cards to rape, then presumably this will produce accounts which are flagged "kids" and "noCC", so are advert-free. "-ish".

    But the important point is, can you set the DOB back, repeatedly, so that you remain in the "useless to advertise to" window ... for how long?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by narcc ( 412956 )

      If it's for kids, I expect that adding a CC will be mandatory and the parental controls will be confusing, poorly documented, and require an app you're not told about before you're able to limit purchases.

      • But, being by definition under the age of fiscal responsibility, how is the kid going to get a credit card?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by narcc ( 412956 )

          That would require the intervention of their parent or guardian, who now has additional tools for monitoring and managing their child's use of the service. That's the whole point.

          There are a lot of ways to do age verification. I'd expect some simple new standards for doing so to emerge as this becomes more important. It's not hard to image a system uses the users email address. A DNS entry, similar to an MX record, to let sites know how to do an age query and what kinds of queries are allowed. Maybe l

          • Do parents really give children credit cards? I thought that was a plot device invented by the lunatic scriptwriters of Hollywood.

            You have a complicated system for age verification. Great, wonderful and marvellous. How is it going to work doing verification across jurisdictions, with different systems in the countries on each end of the transaction (and the data passing through third pary countries, all of which have differing laws about what ages people can do what things, and which questions you can ask

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by narcc ( 412956 )

              Do parents really give children credit cards?

              Millions of children play games with their friends online. How do you think they pay for that? Their parent or guardian does so on their behalf. The parent, in this case, would verify the child's age. I don't particularly care for that solution, but a lot of people here seem to think that a CC is the only way this can possibly be done. I've given two alternatives.

              You have a complicated system for age verification.

              No, I don't. The system I proposed is incredibly simple. So simple that it's both trivial to implement and almost completely invisible to u

              • Do parents really give children credit cards?

                Millions of children play games with their friends online. How do you think they pay for that?

                That's not a problem I've wasted one second of my life considering before now. Games that require continual payment? Wow! Who fell for that one?

                You've even signed up for it.

                I have a Google account. I use it for nothing but Google services. It would be too dangerous to use if for non-Google services, for the reasons I gave.

                I have a Slashdot account. I use that for acces

  • Who cares about the hardware. Amazon is just going to ruin it with the software they put on it.

  • If you bring your kindle on a camping trip, and you get lost, all you have to do is ram a nail through its lithium battery, and you can easily use it for kindling to start a fire to stay warm and alert authorities to your location.

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