Before you — or Amazon, for that matter — gets in twist, I’m actually pretty fond of e-ink tablets. I do think most people are better off with an iPad or Galaxy Tab if they want a notetaking device. When it comes to reading, though, they’ve got distinct advantages. I’ll talk a bit more about those shortly.

One of those advantages used to be price. Yet with a slate of recent hikes, I feel like Kindles have crossed an unfortunate threshold in their value. At this stage, you have to be deeply committed to a particular lifestyle for them to be worth it. You might well be in that camp, but for how much longer?

Why the new cost of Kindles broke my interest

The best reader is the one you’ve already got

First, let’s get into the damage done. While the Kindle Scribe and Scribe Colorsoft have been left untouched, all of Amazon’s reading-only devices have jumped around $40 and $50 each. The entry-level 16GB Kindle is now $150, or $170 if you want to remove lockscreen ads. A top-of-the-line Colorsoft will set you back $290.

Why would Amazon raise prices like this? As a spokesperson recently explained, it was “facing significant increases in memory and storage component costs,” which it felt like it could no longer absorb. That’s somewhat amusing, since Amazon is a major driver of the AI datacenter boom that’s inflating memory prices. It’s pumping billions of dollars into Anthropic, and one of the bigger selling points of Prime membership is Alexa+.

For some of you, the issue with the new prices may be that a Kindle is no longer an impulse buy. It used to be that the base model cost $100 or less. That’s dirt-cheap for any kind of tablet, to the point that I could see someone buying one on a whim when they’re about to head out on vacation. $150 is heading in the wrong direction — it’s enough to force you to weigh the hit on your budget, unless you’re the sort of person who didn’t think twice about parking a Lexus in your driveway.

That wouldn’t be such a concern if the hardware were more powerful. 16GB of storage is adequate, but we’re also talking about a tablet with a 6-inch, black-and-white screen and 512MB of RAM. Amazon’s own Fire HD 10 tablet is just $5 more, and that gets you a 10.1-inch full-color screen, 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage. More importantly, it’s an Android tablet with access to an app store, so you can do more than just read. Heck, you can get superior specs with cheaper generic Android brands. For the cost of a Colorsoft, you might bump up to Samsung’s 11-inch Galaxy Tab A11+, which is competing with iPads and laptops more than it is dedicated e-readers.

That leads to my overriding concern. While e-ink readers are lighter than regular tablets, as well as more compact, longer-lasting, and easier on the eyes, $150 to $290 is just too much to ask when I’ve already got an iPhone with me all the time, and an iPad when I want a bigger screen. Both are, of course, vastly more powerful and flexible, able to handle everything from games and 4K video to light work tasks. When it comes to reading, most smartphones are barely heavier than a Kindle, with a display much better suited to comics, magazines, and artbooks. Just about any new phone will get you a screen over 6 inches, never mind foldables like the iPhone Duo or Pixel 11 Pro Fold.

The Colorsoft is clearly the worst deal. I just can’t fathom paying the same price as I would for a Galaxy Tab. If you insist on the Apple ecosystem, you can get a refurbished 8.3-inch iPad mini for around the same price, or a brand new 11-inch iPad for a little under $100 more. All of these, I should add, aren’t locked into the Kindle Store for e-book purchases. On an iPad, I can be reading a Kindle copy of God’s Problem one moment, then flip over to V for Vendetta from Google Play in a matter of seconds. I might have to buy my books on the web instead of in-app, but that’s a minor sacrifice.

Can Amazon do anything to right the ship?

It might be a bridge too far

Short of cooling memory prices by killing the hype around AI, I think the only way Amazon could entice me is by shifting other specs down the price ladder. That $150 model should at least have the specs of the Kindle Paperwhite, which has a 7-inch display and better performance. To be truly appealing, it should have the specs of the Colorsoft. Color e-ink has been around for years at this point. Honestly, it would be hard for me to justify spending $300 on a Kindle Scribe, and that gets me a multi-purpose tablet with a stylus.

These demands probably aren’t realistic. I know that Kindles have traditionally been low-margin products for Amazon, intended to hook you into Prime, Audible, and the Kindle Store. But if Amazon is going to retain its leadership in the e-reader space, there’s only so much it can charge before even hardcore readers and digital detoxers decide they’re better off popping open the Kindle app on their phone. Or picking up paper books, naturally.