The Amazon Kindle Keyboard has received a number of new firmware updates over the course of the last two years, most notably parental controls. The e-reader is getting fairly long in the tooth, when compared to the Kindle Touch and Kindle Paperwhite. With a product refresh coming at the end of the summer, this device is getting harder to find. Amazon, Best Buy, Target, and many other retailers are now showing this reader as sold out.
The Kindle Keyboard was a fairly popular model when it came out in 2011, when it was known as the Kindle Graphite. At the time, competition in the e-reader space was fairly poor and customers loved the ability to type notes on the physical keyboard. These days, people want touchscreens or virtual screens. The Kindle 4, Paperwhite, and Kindle Touch are the three devices Amazon is marketing, and it really looks like the Keyboard model is officially discontinued.
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.