The first-generation Amazon Kindle, while not the first electronic reader in the market, was met with positive reception from consumers. It sold out in less than six hours when it first became available in November 2007 and remained out of stock for months. The brand remains one of the most popular e-readers as it capitalizes on the Kindle Store, which is the largest digital bookstore in the world. But there are drawbacks to owning an Amazon Kindle.
Cons to Consider: Notable Disadvantages of Amazon Kindle
Walled Garden and Book Ownership Issues
One of the biggest drawbacks of purchasing and owning an Amazon Kindle is that users do not own the e-books purchased from the Kindle Store. A purchase translates to a mere license. This is stated in the Kindle Store Terms of Use.
In the physical world, the First Sale Doctrine allows a buyer to sell, lend, or give away a book they bought and own. However, in the digital world, courts have generally ruled that this doctrine does not apply because transferring a digital file to another device actually involves making a copy of it, which violates copyright law.
Note that the aforementioned translate to more specific disadvantages:
• Absence of Portability: Books bought from the Kindle Store are locked in the AZW and KFX proprietary formats. Hence, if a user decides to switch to another e-reader like Kobo or Boox, they cannot easily move their library to the new platform.
• Digital Disappearance: Amazon has the technical ability to remove books from a library if it loses the licensing rights from publishers. This has happened in the past.
• New Transfer Restrictions: The company has also significantly restricted the Download and Transfer via USB feature as of 2025. This makes it much harder to back up electronic books to a computer or manage them via third-party software like Calibre.
Kindle also does not have native support for EPUB files. This file format is the standard in the industry and is native to personal computers, smartphones, and other electronic readers. The workaround is through the Send to Kindle service that converts a particular EPUB file to a compatible native proprietary file format like AZW and KFX.
Library integration via services like BorrowBox, Hoopla, and Libby is often nonexistent outside the United States. Moreover, in Canada and Europe, a user or buyer cannot send library books directly to an Amazon Kindle device.
Disadvantages from Hardware Limitations
Amazon uses electrophoretic displays, particularly the E-Ink brand, across all of its Kindle models and generations. There are advantages to these display technologies over mainstream alternatives like liquid crystal displays and OLED displays.
For starters, unlike emissive displays like IPS and TN LCD technologies, it is a reflective display with almost the same readability as reading print. It also consumes substantially less power. Note that a Kindle can last one to two weeks on a single charge.
But there are drawbacks that translate to specific Kindle disadvantages:
• Sluggish Feel: A Kindle will feel slow if a user is used to using a tablet device like an iPad or a Samsung Galaxy Tab. This is because its screen refresh rate is low. Ghosting effects are noticeable on an actively changing screen, and the UX feels slow.
• Display Fragility: The display technology is made of a very thin glass substrate. It is more prone to internal cracks from pressure than a smartphone.
• Color Display: Amazon has released the Kindle Colorsoft model in 2025 with colored E-Ink displays. The screens on these devices look a bit grainier or dimmer in black-and-white mode compared to the crispness of a traditional Kindle Paperwhite.
The limitations of the E-Ink screens mean that some might find the Kindle not ideal for heavier reading activities. These include referencing texts and studying. Flipping back and forth between pages or book sections is frustratingly slow compared to a physical book and even devices like personal computers, smartphones, and tablet computers.
Amazon Kindle also handles PDF files poorly. Complex formatting, including pages with graphs and diagrams, often renders too small or becomes unreadable. This is because the device is designed primarily for reflowable text and e-book formats.
Important Considerations Before Buying an Amazon Kindle
Owning and using an Amazon Kindle involves significant ecosystem lock-in and a lack of true digital ownership over digital purchases. Most book titles are licensed rather than owned. There is also a problem when it comes to transferring files to other competing devices. Amazon can also remove a title if its distribution license has been revoked.
The device remains one of the best e-readers on the market. Access to the Kindle Store is also one of its strongest selling points. However, the Kindle Store is not limited to Kindle devices. Note that the particular Amazon Kindle app is a cross-platform app that can be used on Windows, macOS, iOS and iPadOS, and Android devices.