Message from Amazon about my much loved Kindle

[ElinoristhenewEnid]

Just got this email this morning. Absolutely gutted - my kindle was bought for me by my ds for Christmas 2011 when he was a student- still works perfectly.

I don't really understand what the benefit of jailbreaking is. What does it allow you to do that you can't do otherwise? I already sideload to mine via Calibre/USB. What difference without jailbreaking mean?

That is annoying. I won't replace I guess as it doesn't support Borrowbox and I used that more lately

Bought this 25th November 2022… stopped working just past the warranty. Really annoying 😢

This is AWFUL!! They're meant to replace books! Books don't suddenly glue themselves shut after a few years. Blatant profiteering trying to force you into buying a new one.

While I agree with the sentiment @Jazzcatt even with buying a new Kindle every few years (to upgrade, neither of the ones I replaced actually broke), it's been very cost effective for me.

I've managed to get all my Kindles at a substantial discount, otherwise I wouldn't have bought at least one of them, so the average cost per year has been minimal. I only generally buy the books I want when they're on the 99 p deal - I have loads of unread ones so don't allow myself to pay more than that.

I read quite a lot and the only way it could be cheaper for me would be if I had a library in walking distance that was open when I could get there or other free source of books such as the swap shelves you see around. As I have neither, my Kindle is worth it to me, also for the convenience. Even charity shops tend to charge more than 99 p per book.

It's probably the only item I own (except perhaps the dishwasher ) that I would replace the same day even if I had to pay full price and extra for same/next day delivery, which I've probably never done for anything else I've bought.

I think the published figures are something like 4.5% of current global users are affected. Neither of mine are effected (one is waiting for me to deliver it to my Mum as I got a new one which is page turner compatible as my 10 year old paperwhite wasn’t).

Unfortunately with tech it will happen and it comes down to money - it gets to a point where it costs more to re-code older versions to be compatible with newer tech than they ultimately make from the users.

There will be some way to continue using them - it will just mean you have to use third party software and plug it into a PC to download new content. So it becomes a cost vs benefit for you instead of Amazon. Do you go for the convenience of buying a new one or do you learn how to re use the hardware?

The discount works on top of any sales they have going, and they frequently have Kindle sales, so I think it's a pretty good upgrade offer on a product that old. I'm surprised your battery has held out this long! If you are mildly technical you can also jailbreak your kindle to allow you to continue adding new titles, though not buying them from Amazon.

I take it everyone is still using Windows XP? Never upgrades their phone? Uses an obsolete browser that can't handle content- and image-heavy websites?

Why would you assume that?

I see no reason to "upgrade" my kindle keyboard because there's no significant benefit to me. My current kindle does what I need it to. Why would I choose to spend money on another kindle that gives me nothing extra?

I don't mind upgrading tech if I get something tangibly better.

Exactly this. There is no benefit to replacing these perfectly functional Kindles, only a cost. I'm in the same boat with a first gen Paperwhite which still fits my needs perfectly and I am REALLY annoyed about it! I was reading about Calibre last night but it doesn't appear that it will work for these old Kindles, or at least not for much longer. Contemplating getting a more recent secondhand model off ebay but that feels like a risky strategy.

But those things aren't comparable, like @RebelMoon says, there's not always a benefit to upgrading. I only upgraded my kindles because there was a benefit (firstly the light and the second upgrade because it was waterproof and I use mine at the spa or on the beach where it gets covered in sand so I can give it a good rinse), and I got them much cheaper than the headline price.

Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. Tech-wise, they're hardly more complicated than a pocket calculator, speaking of which, I'm still using the one I had at school (phone calculators are shit) and I'm in my 50s. I changed the battery in one only a few weeks ago and the battery I took out had a use by date of 2002!

I agree with previous comments in that there is no benefit to me buying a new Kindle in the same way as a phone, laptop etc, as the tech is basic - a replacement is not an "upgrade" for me as there is nothing wrong with the Kindle I'm using although it will be a downgrade of my bank balance!

My DH has said he can jailbreak mine (he's a software engineer so is confident it is easy to do) but unfortunately this still wouldn't allow me to buy books from the Kindle store and the other platforms I can get books from don't tend to have the same choice. I already use a Kobo for accessing library books through Borrow Box.

Annoyingly on the day I received the email I looked at the price of new Kindles - I am pretty sure the Kindles the discount applied to were £20 cheaper on that day and have since increased in price.

Please can someone more up to date than me help?

I have bought my new Kindle, followed the instructions and set it up (go me!) and now I've bought a book the way I usually would on the Amazon website, from my laptop.

I think it's automatically delivered to the new Kindle but I can't find it, in amongst the eleventy billion books in my library (so many pictures, confusing my little brain) - why TAF are they not in alphabetical order, written in words, and can I make them so?

I'm having similar problems with finding stuff and working out how it all works but at the moment I'm using the search function to find individual books if I know what I'm looking for.
I had all my books in helpful collections on my old Kindle and somehow that's not ported across so I've just got approx 1000 books with not always an idea of what I'm after, I'd just like to be able to browse say, fiction or history or short stories. So I'm going to have to go through them all again and re-categorise, which is annoying.
Also I look at the whole list on my laptop in my Amazon account which can be easier and helpful to find things until I've got my head round it all. HTH.

Oh and I think you can put them in alphabetical order sorry, I'll have a look at that later and get back to you.

Thank you very much @TemporarilyCantDoMyself .

@WipersThymes

Check that your new Kindle is selected in your Amazon account otherwise it will still be sending books to your old one when you buy them.

If you're looking in your Kindle to find the newest books you bought, go the library screen and touch the three horizontal lines icon in the top right.

Make sure the view options is on all and the sort by is set to most recent, then you'll see if your new book is there. Also make sure your new Kindle has the wifi on and is connected to your wifi network.

I find that, if my kindle and collections get out of control (I've had a Kindle since they were introduced, have bought over 1000 x 99 p books, that are mostly unread because I'm an enthusiastic participant in the Japanese art of Tsondoku and keep making random collections for various reasons), it's easier to go into the 'manage content and devices' section on the laptop, delete or rename some the unused collections, make new ones etc and also put books in collections in bulk as it's easier to scroll and select. It can be quite a nice thing to do to browse through your purchases for books you may have forgotten buying - many a time I see a book in a bookshop or library, I see someone reading it or it's mentioned by a friend or on a podcast and when I look, I already bought it for 99p some time ago.

Once you've completed your Kindle housekeeping, make sure the wifi on your kindle is on and it should update the collections and covers. Although it doesn't always seem to automatically download the books but it will do it when you try to open it - you can always connect it to the wifi on your phone/wherever you are if you're not at home.

Helpful for me too, thanks! Extra info some of which I wasn't aware of.
Like you I've got 1000 books many of them spontaneously bought at 99p! 😂

@TemporarilyCantDoMyself you shouldn’t need to recategorize. Surely you just need to download the collections from cloud onto the decide and they’ll then be correctly categorised. But if the collection isn’t on your decide they just all go in the home page.

So I'm assuming decide is a (double?) typo but even taking that into account I have no idea what you mean really. My old Kindle was nearly 20 years old so I'm not convinced that my collections were cloud-stored.

@Bjorkdidit I ticked the connect to account box when I bought it so I think that's all okay.

I don't have three horizontal lines (that I can see) at the top right of the library screen. There's the battery, the wifi pie, below the battery is three dots (from which I can access settings) beside which is a shopping basket and below which are two arrows, one up, one down.

Make sure the view options is on all and the sort by is set to most recent, then you'll see if your new book is there. Also make sure your new Kindle has the wifi on and is connected to your wifi network.

Done, but I can't see where the book is.

I'll spend some time later today or tomorrow doing the housework thing (then I won't need to do the real housework ) and see if that helps.

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk me through it.

If you don't have three lines below the three dots, you must have a different Kindle to me, but it links to the display options for the library, so it might be in settings elsewhere.

I've got to Library tab which offers me:

Group series (which is already switched on)
Collections, which I have ticked to always show but nothing has changed.

I'll need to have a play about with it, get to know it. We can meet for a drink later 😁

Thank you @Bjorkdidit .

It’s for really old Kindles that can’t support the new tech.

I’ve had them for years, and I replace regularly. They’re not that expensive.

Yes sorry it’s a typo for device. If I don’t download the collection onto the device then all the books are just unorganised. But yes perhaps different for your newer device. I also need to change to view by collection.

you can also manage your devises and content online and collections are very much supported there which I why I don’t think they wouldn’t be on your new devise