After 15 years of iteration and development, even the most basic Kindle is a refined piece of hardware. That’s why, even though this latest basic Kindle is almost identical to its predecessor, it’s still a good value and a reliable e-reader. Amazon’s ecosystem is unrivaled, and the Kindle OS is purpose-built to run as smoothly as possible on its hardware.
However, this has been a tough launch for Amazon. The Paperwhite and the Colorsoft had screen problems, and the new Scribe has received unenthusiastic reviews. Can the humble Kindle, the cornerstone of Amazon’s e-book business, outshine its siblings and bring back honor to the Kindle name? Mostly yes, but kind of no.
Amazon Kindle (2024)
The newest Kindle is just a small step up from its predecessor, but if you’re due for an upgrade, this is a solid choice with its higher contrast and faster page turns. Plus that new Matcha color looks good.
- Unbeatable price
- Snappy processor
- Sharp Carta 1300 display
- No major hardware updates from last model
- no warm frontlight
- more locked down than last model
Price, availability, and specs
At $110 (lockscreen ads) or $130 (no lockscreen ads), Amazon’s latest base Kindle is $10 more expensive than it was two years ago, despite mostly having the same hardware. The biggest difference between the two devices is the new Carta 1300 screen from E Ink, which has sharper contrast than the outdated Carta 1000 screen on the 2022 model. Couple that with the 25% brighter frontlights, and the Kindle 2024 already promises a noticeably better viewing experience.
If you want to buy one, you can get it directly from Amazon and have it delivered in a couple of days. If you can’t wait that long, it’s also available in big-box stores like Target and Best Buy without a markup, but there’s no guarantee it will be in stock.
What’s good about the Amazon Kindle (2024)?
Pound for pound, it’s one of the best e-readers on the market
The best thing about owning a Kindle is the ecosystem — how well all the parts work together out of the box. Once you connect your Kindle to your Amazon account, you will have access to all the books you’ve purchased on Amazon in seconds. Likewise, buying new books is a breeze. Since your Kindle is already connected to your Amazon account, it has access to your payment information, so you won’t have to fiddle with putting in your credit card number or PayPal email.
On the hardware side of things, the new Carta 1300 display looks noticeably better than the display from two years ago (but not by much). Even though the black ink is just a tad darker and the white ink is just a bit lighter, the effect is clearly noticeable when both devices are side-by-side. The brighter front lights are a nice addition as well, but they are entirely unnecessary since the 2022 model didn’t have any issues with low-light reading.
Amazon Kindle (2022) review: Edging out the Paperwhite as a must-buy
The new Kindle for 2022 brings some big upgrades, including USB-C
Even though the latest Kindle has the same specs as its predecessor, it still feels snappy and responsive. This is largely thanks to it likely having the same 1GHz processor as the Kindle 2022. Although that may not sound like much, given how laser-focused the Kindle is in its intention and execution, it’s more than enough to ensure that the Kindle quickly responds to touches, and you won’t have to wait a long time for the store or your library to load.
The Kindle 2024 also feels good to hold because it’s so light. There are lighter devices out there in the sub-$150 price range, but at 158g, it weighs less than most paperbacks, so don’t expect any wrist pain unless you’re reading for an entire day, but if that’s the case, even a book would start to wear out your wrist.
What’s bad about the Amazon Kindle (2024)?
This isn’t much of an upgrade
My biggest gripe with the new Kindle is the ongoing lack of warm front lights. Having LEDs that can shine 25% brighter is neat if I’m using my Kindle as a flashlight, but I would rather invest in improving brightness to give my device a warmer color. It may sound like a small thing, but it becomes a bigger issue when you’ve used an e-reader with warm light and then have to go back to a device with just white LEDs.
The Kindle 2024 isn’t substantially different from the Kindle 2022, either. Amazon hasn’t released the full specs for this new model, but as best as can be told, it has the same silicon as 2022’s model. The cutting-edge Carta 1300 screen is a welcome upgrade after the woefully outdated Carta 1000, but this isn’t really an upgrade to the previous model (particularly if you’re interested in access to your device). The fact that the Kindle 2024 doesn’t meaningfully improve the overall experience is a disappointment.
It’s also sad to see Kindle locking down its devices even more in this generation. In the e-book space, Amazon is the king of DRM, and with the Kindle 2024 (and all 12th-gen devices), it’s assuming an even more restrictive stance. The most obvious manifestation is the loss of download and transfer functionality that lets users download their e-books and sideload them onto their Kindle.
When you download an e-book from Amazon, you must specify which device you’re going to read it on, and then it can only be opened on that device. That’s already very restrictive, but this new change prevents readers from archiving their books at all.
The other big change to the new Kindle is how its file system is accessed. Previous Kindle models used the ubiquitous USB mass storage protocol when connected to a PC. The 2024 models use Media Transfer Protocol (the same protocol used by Android), which can prevent device owners from accessing certain parts of the file system.
This isn’t really an issue for most people at the moment. Most of the file system is accessible, but it could be problematic going forward if Amazon feels like locking down its Kindles. It’s also a problem for Mac users since Macs don’t natively support the MTP protocol, so those readers will need third-party software to access their Kindles.
Should you buy it?
The Kindle is a solid device, but this is a crowded market
Whether the new Kindle 2024 is the e-reader for you depends on a few things. If you already have the 2022 model, it isn’t worth the upgrade. The difference between the Carta 1000 display on the 2022 model and the Carta 1300 display on the 2024 model is noticeable, but it doesn’t justify upgrading your device just two years later.
If you’re working with an e-reader budget of around $200, many better devices are available. The new Paperwhite starts at $160, is larger, waterproof, and has warm lights.
For the same price, you can get the lesser-known Meebook M6, which is the same size, runs Android, has warm lights, and has greater color depth (256 levels of gray vs 16). For $150, you can get the Kobo Clara Colour, which is the same size, has the same chip, and has a color screen. If you just want to avoid the Amazon ecosystem, you can get the ad-free Kobo Clara BW for $110, which has nearly identical specs to the Kindle.
The Kobo Clara BW is a capable e-reader that does something its competitors can’t
How important are marginal gains in contrast to you?
On the other hand, if your e-reader is outdated and you’re trying to save as much money as possible, the Kindle 2024 is a great buy (especially if you buy it during one of Amazon’s frequent sales). No other e-reader under $120 is as quick or light. None of its competitors has an ecosystem as fully developed as Amazon’s. And no other e-reader has the abundance of first- and third-party accessories that the Kindle 2024 does. There’s a reason Kindle is king.
Amazon Kindle (2024)
The new Amazon Kindle 2024 isn’t a perfect device, and it’s definitely not a once-size-fits-all e-reader solution, but it does pack in more features than just about every other device at its price point. If you need a new compact e-reader, you could do a lot worse.
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