A dozen products will be impacted (Picture: Getty Images)
Amazon will soon make millions of Kindle e-readers and Kindle Fire devices unusable in what one book-lover called a ‘nightmare’.
The tech giant sent customers an email this week saying that devices released during or before 2012 will no longer be supported from May 20.
As e-readers rely on online services to download and read new books via the Kindle Store,this will all but ‘brick’ the devices.
Experts estimate this will impact about two million devices,including:
Kindle 1st Generation (2007)
Kindle DX and DX Graphite (2009 and 2010)
Kindle Keyboard (2010)
Kindle 4 (2011)
Kindle Touch (2011)
Kindle 5 (2012)
Kindle Paperwhite 1st Generation (2012)
Kindle Fire 1st Gen (2011)
Kindle Fire 2nd Gen (2012)
Kindle Fire HD 7 (2012)
Kindle Fire HD 8.9 (2012)
‘I made the intentional choice not to trust Amazon’
Daria Ershova has owned her Kindle for nearly a decade (Picture: Daria Ershova)
Book-lovers have criticised the move. Among them is Daria Ershova,a PR worker in Belgrade,Serbia,who has owned a Kindle since 2017. Her mum,meanwhile,has been reading books on the device for 13 years.
‘What frustrates me most is the logic of it,’ Daria,24,tells Metro.
‘If a device works perfectly fine,cutting off its access to new content is a bad business decision.
‘And it’s one that punishes exactly the kind of customer Amazon should want to keep: people who’ve been in their ecosystem for a decade.’
Some social media users fear that the move was to force more people to use Kindle models that have adverts.
I’m so upset… My Kindle is fifteen years old. It still works fine,and I want no other. I read a lot,and this is the only e-reader that doesn’t hurt my eyes. None of the new models have a screen that so perfectly mimics paper. And now Amazon is forcing me to buy a new… pic.twitter.com/NuaSOYIG9C
— Susana Imaginário – Authoress (@Chronodendron) April 9,2026
New Kindle models display ads for books and sponsored screensavers on the home page and lock screen,which can be removed for a fee.
Amazon’s announcement has left people who own e-readers not produced by the American corporation worried that their devices could be next.
One social media user told Metro that he bought an e-device by the Canadian company Kobo for this very reason.
‘I am a bit worried that I’ll eventually need to replace my Kobo and would rather refurbish it,’ he says.
‘I’d be more worried if I had a Kindle but I made the intentional choice not to trust Amazon.’
What can I no longer do on these Kindles?
Amazon says that users will still be able to flip through already downloaded ebooks and their Kindle Library will remain accessible on the smartphone app and the Kindle website.
It also warned that deregistering or performing a factory reset on the older Kindles will make them unusable.
On Kindle Fire devices,users will no longer be able to purchase or download content. All other services will remain operational.
Some of the oldest Kindle e-readers weren’t sold in the UK (Picture: Anadolu)
Amazon should have already emailed you if you own one of these bricks-to-be,but you can use this page to find out which model you have.
To soften the blow,Amazon is offering longtime users a promotional code for 20% of some Kindle devices,as well as book credits if they purchase a new device before June 20.
Tech expert Paolo Pescatore says that as much as Amazon’s decision is ‘frustrating’ for users,stopping support for older models makes sense from a security perspective.
‘The challenge is that these devices were built for a different era and are not equipped to run newer,more data-hungry services and features,’ he tells Metro.
‘On top of that,supporting ageing hardware becomes harder as older chipsets,components and software stacks lose broader industry support.’
Ugo Vallauri,co-director of the Restart Project,which teaches people how to refurbish their old tech,says Amazon will brick two million devices.
A Kindle 1st Generation (2007) is among the impacted products (Picture: eBay)
Vallauri tells Metro that while this will only impact 3% of users,it’s the latest example of ‘software obsolescence’,leading to 624 tons of e-waste.
‘We’ve seen it all before,’ he says. ‘Manufacturers of all kinds of products.
‘Amazon claims that new models provide better performance when deciding to stop supporting products they’ve already sold to consumers. However,that’s hardly a good reason for soft-bricking millions of still functioning devices.’
‘By offering a discount to buy a new device,Amazon is implicitly inviting people to upgrade and recycle their existing,functioning device.’