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Earlier this week, I commented that the recent boom in tiny e-readers—I’m talking about those credit card-sized, Chinese-made e-ink devices that have become all the rage on BookTok and Reddit—was the most interesting thing to happen to the market in years. From the Xteink X4 Pro to the forthcoming Boox Picco, these wee little guys, which are small enough to slip into any pocket, have gathered a cult following of readers who prize ultra-portability above all else.
Today’s announcement of a redesigned line of Kindles didn’t do anything to change that opinion. Setting aside the additional reveal of long-requested accessories like a Bluetooth page-turn remote and a charging dock, these new Kindles mostly deliver the same familiar Amazon e-reader experience in a slightly more refined package. And if you were hoping Amazon might hop on the bandwagon with a tiny e-reader of its own—or even a phone-shaped e-reader like the Boox Palma— well, I wouldn’t hold your breath.
$149.99
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$149.99
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Yesterday, Amazon invited other journalists and me to the company’s New York City headquarters to check out the new Kindles, and during our talk with Kevin Keith, vice president of the Kindle team, we asked him if the company has been monitoring the pocket e-reader trend, and if it would ever make a Kindle with a screen smaller than the standard six inches. His response didn’t surprise me at all.
“Our answer to that is, I think [the basic Kindle]—when you’re at 140 grams, and you’re this lightweight, you can carry it almost anywhere. I carry these in my pocket. In your bag, you’re not even going to know it’s there,” Keith said. “I think that’s first and foremost what I’d say.” That is, Amazon already thinks the six-inch device is plenty small enough for most readers, and as a company, Amazon is generally targeting most readers. The tiny e-reader audience is “a very vocal group of people,” he added, “but I don’t know how big that group of people is.”
While it’s monitoring the chatter around devices like the Palma or even smaller options like the X4 Pro, for Amazon, the existing entry-level Kindle is “a really good format,” Keith said. “Getting to four or five inches, I think there’s just a lot of compromises there that you have to make. The core answer is just making a better entry device.”
Chris Green, Kindle’s vice president of design, a veteran who has worked on every Kindle device save the first-generation model (which was released just as he joined the company), agreed, while leaving the door open just a crack wider: “I think they’re fascinating,” Green said of smaller alternative e-readers, while admitting they weren’t for him (he prefers to read on a massive Kindle Scribe). “Are we going to do one? I don’t know. Are we looking into them? Yes.”
What does “looking into them” mean? Well, “we look into everything,” he said, noting Amazon has previously investigated both foldable and rollable e-readers. “But those things are fascinating,” he added. “I don’t know if [they’re] going to be successful, but [they’re] definitely worth watching.”
