Amazon has announced that a number of its older Kindle reader models will no longer have access to new books from the Kindle Store. The company said models released in 2012 and before are losing access to the online repository. The devices that are effectively becoming obsolete include the original Kindle reader that arrived all the way back in 2007.
From May 20, users will “no longer be able to purchase, borrow, or download new content via the Kindle Store,” an Amazon representative told The Verge. The affected devices are as follows:
- 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)
Owners of those Kindles will still have access to books already downloaded to their devices. Any purchases made before that date still still be transferable. However, any factory reset after May 20 will effectively register the device useless as affected Kindles cannot be re-registered. That’s far from ideal, as sometimes those factory resets are hard to avoid.
Amazon is dangling a carrot for affected users with 20% off a brand new Kindle model, plus a $20 book credit from the Kindle store. That’ll be valid for a month. Amazon is contacting users ahead of the deadline. That’ll tell them the lay of the land and contain details of the upgrade offer.
