Should the Amazon Kindle release premium e-readers?
The Amazon Kindle line of e-readers is the most popular one globally. The company has a stranglehold on Canada, the US, and the United Kingdom, representing nearly 75% of the total. The Amazon bookstore is one of the best in the world, and it also has several side hustles, such as Kindle Vella, Prime Reading, and Kindle Unlimited, not to mention audiobooks from Audible. Most Kindles are affordable, anywhere from under $100 to $200; the outlier is the Kindle Scribe, a different product category; it’s an e-note. Should Amazon continue to focus on cheaper, more affordable e-readers or premium ones?
Amazon used to sell premium e-readers that had all sorts of bells and whistles. The Kindle DX, Voyage, and Kindle Oasis have excellent features not found on any other Kindle. Some people enjoy the physical page-turn buttons, while others want a larger screen to fit more text. These ranged in price from $300 to $500, depending on if you wished to have certain features, such as 4G internet access. Many people loved the form factor of these devices since the build quality was higher. These devices won’t receive new models, and they are discontinued.
The Kindle Scribe is the most expensive model in Amazon’s portfolio. However, it doesn’t seem very popular. They only sell 400 per month in the US unless there is a sale, which makes it close to $100 cheaper. Still, most people will buy a Paperwhite, Paperwhite Signature Edition or the base model Kindle for reading. Total price, they are all affordable and when Amazon runs their monthly sale, even more so.
What should Amazon do in the future? Should they continue to focus on e-readers made of plastic, making them more affordable, or have at least one premium model with a higher build, such as aluminum or page-turn buttons? People reading this on Good e-Reader might have differing opinions since our readers love e-readers and reading. The average person? Likely, they don’t want to spend much on the hardware; instead, they focus on buying.
There are rumours that Amazon will release multiple colour e-readers in 2025. The report claims they will use Gallery 3 colour e-paper, which can display over 50,000 different colours, instead of Kaleido 3, which only does 4096 colours.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
