e-Readers – The Reluctant Upgrade

I read a lot. It was inevitable, therefore, that I’d end up with an e-reader. I got a Kindle back in 2010, and I filled it with ebooks of all kinds, and I spent the next 15 years continuing to do so. My digital library is truly vast at this point and it shows no signs of shrinking, and I intend to swell it even further very soon with a few indie titles to fill up the old machine.

I say ‘the old machine’. The e-reader in my hands is not my original Kindle. But because I am very much a creature of habit, it is the same model as I first got 15 years ago, the good old Kindle Keyboard. That first Kindle lasted me 11 years of constant reading, 11 years of books, until in 2021 it finally gave up the ghost and froze forever. I was at a loss. Because after more than a decade of development Kindles and e-readers generally had come on a long way… a long, far more expensive way. And for all the benefits of touchscreens and backlights I was, and remain, that creature of habit.

So instead of buying a new Kindle I snagged my mother’s old unused one, an identical Kindle Keyboard that fit as snugly in my hand as the old Book of Hûw (for such was its name) ever did. It lasted… well, about 5 minutes, actually, before I realised that the battery was completely and utterly buggered.

But I am not only a creature of habit, I am a man who refuses to give up on a thing until it is completely, unusably, broken. I am a man who is currently regularly reinstalling the YouTube app on his decade-old iPad because the OS is so out of date that most stuff just doesn’t work anymore. I am a man who is simply not installing the update that will probably ruin his old Pixel’s battery life. And I like to tinker. And so in my laboratory one evening an abomination was born, a fusion of old and older, as I dismantled both Kindles, stripped out the dead battery from my mother’s device and plugged in the still-functional one from my own frozen one. And lo: it was alive! The Frankenkindle lived on, and I could read on, for another year or so, before that composite too gave up the ghost and froze. I was happy with that. Another free year of life was nothing to sniff at.

But in 2022 I remained two things: a creature of habit, and broke. I once again ignored the shiny new devices Amazon attempted to peddle to me, ignored how much nicer and smoother my wife’s own newer model ran, and went to eBay to purchase a third Kindle Keyboard. This sits before me now. It runs. It reads. It is familiar, and it is mine, and I am loath to ever change that.

A paper book is always a nicer thing to read than a digital one. The tactility of turning pages, the smell of paper old or new, the feel of it in your hands – nothing digital can ever truly compare. I own a Kindle for convenience, for the ability to carry a thousand books with me at a time, to be able to instantly begin the next in a series barely lifting a finger. But in fifteen years I have become so used to this machine in my hands. The buttons, the keyboard – now largely pointless after updates and redundancies – the weight, the look of the screen. The Kindle Keyboard is as familiar to my hands as a paperback. It isn’t as pleasant to read on an objective level, but I love it just as much.

And this one, too, is on its way out. It is a new ailment that affects the Book of Hûw Volume III: its screen is full of lines, the e-ink giving out a few beads at a time. It’s still entirely usable, still readable, but it is getting worse, and one day soon, I fear, the words will no longer be words. The battery is sound, it doesn’t freeze often, but it is at best more than a decade old, for all that I only got it 2 years ago. And so are all Kindle Keyboards now. And very soon, I will have need of an e-reader, as I take a trip to somewhere very special indeed (more on that soon).

It’s been fifteen years of familiarity. It is time, at last, for an upgrade.

I’m still broke, though, or if not actually broke then still very much not wanting to spend almost £200 on a new device. And while I don’t entirely like being beholden to Amazon, my whole library is in their formats, I’ve got a few gift cards, and I am not quite ready to pledge my allegiance to another e-reader yet. (And yes, I could convert everything, and I already have my whole library in some other formats, but still: faff.)

So a 7th generation Kindle wings its way to me; four years and four iterations (plus all the other types they invented) more modern than my own, for all that it is still over a decade behind the current curve. It has a touchscreen. It has double the storage. It has a few marks on the screen, sure, but it was also only £20, so I think I can cope with that. It will work. It will do. I will get used to it. It will be a better reading experience by far.

But I’ll miss my old friend with its pointless keyboard. Not that I’m getting rid of it, mind. Even if and when it does break, I’ll still probably try and mend it. That’s just who I am.

And I might want to play Minesweeper one day, anyway. Bet your fancy Paperwhites can’t do that.

Drains the whole battery in about an hour but it’s absolutely worth it.