I tried to read a book on a 15 year old Kindle - here's how it went

The little orange light that sputtered to life beside the port was a miracle, and after waking from its long slumber, the E Ink display rendered a loading page. My old second-gen Kindle was revived, and I discovered a time capsule waiting for me on the other side of the screen. Here's how the iconic 2009 Kindle compares to the 2024 Kindle Paperwhite -- 15 years of difference put side by side.

Major hardware differences

Buttons were big in 2009

The first thing you notice is how the second-gen Kindle sports a small screen sitting above a full QWERTY keyboard (why did we ever need that?). Then there's the singular Previous Page button to the left of the screen, two Next Page buttons on either side (Amazon really thought about the lefties), and Home button on the right. Also on the right side beside the keyboard is a Menu and Back button, as well as a handy little joystick that made cursor control a breeze back in the day.

The screen isn't touch, if you couldn't gather from the assortment of buttons at my disposal. It's a modern convenience I'm very glad the Kindle lineup pivoted to; it's more intuitive in a world where almost every other device has a touchscreen, even if some users still invest in external page turners.

The power button doesn't exist -- the second-gen Kindle actually powered on via a spring-sliding power switch on top of the device, sitting right next to my favorite hardware feature ever: a 3.5mm headphone jack. Nostalgia hit me like a stack of fallen books at the sight of both. Not only were they spectacular features for the time, but I believe they'd be just as useful on a modern-day Kindle.

Now, if you want to listen to audiobooks in 2025, you must connect a pair of Bluetooth headphones or a speaker to your device to play them. I don't know if anyone's told Amazon that wired headphones are back as an analog fashion statement, but the new Kindle line would rock the headphone jack and make a lot of users happy on their morning commutes.

And that power slider -- Amazon's greatest loss was ditching it. Even in the big year 2025, I position my Kindle Paperwhite wrong and accidentally press the power button on the bottom of the e-reader and completely interrupt my spy novel. The 15-year-old slider not only sits out of the way at the top, but it also is much harder to trigger accidental power on or offs. If modern Kindles did anything now, I'd prefer the power toggle (whatever it is) to be on the top of the device.

Software differences between 2009 and 2024 Kindles

Y2K may look more iconic, but 2024 takes the user experience to the moon

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Kindles, even the earliest generations, set the bar high for all e-readers -- including all future versions of themselves. I encourage most interested buyers to opt for the basic Kindle over any of the other upgraded models because it's such a spectacular single-use device. While the 2009 Kindle was revolutionary for readers, it pales in comparison to the reading experience the 2024 Kindle models offer.

I dove into the old Kindle's library, which featured 15 pages of books in list-view format -- there wasn't the familiar cover-view I've grown to love on modern devices. I chuckled at the stories I used to devour on there -- Jules Vern's A Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Pittacus Lore's I am Number Four, and plenty of other classics littered among teen romance novels and dystopian trilogies. The small screen cut off almost every title and author name, though, so I had to make some assumptions about what I was clicking.

Using the joystick, I selected The Hunger Games, likely one of the last books I read on that device before upgrading, to test drive the UI. I was greeted by the very end of the book and painstakingly clicked the previous page button until I landed at a normal part of the story. The refresh rate was slow, but not as slow as I would've expected for the e-reader's age. The tiny screen, however, felt cluttered -- the title, battery, progress bar, and obscure location numbers all competing for attention alongside the text itself. It isn't noticeable until you spend time reading on a new Kindle -- the screen is completely minimalist in comparison.

Do they affect the story? No. Are they a distraction? Yes. The 2024 Kindle lineup gives you ample setting customizations, something that'd be more frustrating to set up with the second-gen's low-set joystick.

I much prefer the 2024 line's touchscreen capabilities. And while it has many more settings and customizations, the cleanliness of the interface makes it feel far more zen than its 15-year-old great-grandparent.

Curious takeaways

Kindles have always done their job

Stumbling upon the second-generation Kindle was akin to uncovering a treasure chest. I spend so much of my time writing about Amazon's newest e-readers that it's easy to forget there was ever a 'first' device that kicked the famous line off. While I never had my hands on a first-gen, the second was my very first e-reader and let me read more books in a week than a dozen trips to the library could have achieved.

I leaned into the nostalgia and read on the old Kindle for about an hour, and the second-gen still does exactly what it did best in 2009 -- put dozens of books on a single device so I could take them all with me wherever I went. As the years went by, software and hardware innovations only improved the experience, but that little device can still get the job done (and well).

The only thing holding it back is the charge -- which it really can't seem to keep for more than a few minutes. But what do you expect from an old, weathered device that's told more stories than I can count? I'm not docking any points.