The Weekly Spark

Amazon sells the books, makes the e-readers and certainly has the infrastructure. So why can I buy a tiny e-reader from XTEINK, but not a tiny Kindle from Amazon? Is it protecting sales of its existing devices? Is the market too small? Or is Amazon waiting to see whether these little readers have a future? 📩 Subscribe to my regular newsletter - https://markdkelly.substack.com ☕️ Buy me a virtual...

BOOX has recently announced three new E-Ink devices, ranging from a phone-sized reader to a full 10.3-inch colour tablet. They all run Android 16, use upgraded 4-nanometre octa-core processors and include BOOX Super Refresh technology, which the company says should make E-Ink feel faster and more responsive. Look a little closer, though, and the picture becomes less straightforward. One appears to...

Apple has finally made a folding iPhone and at first glance, the new iPhone Duo looks like it could replace two devices: your standard iPhone and your iPad mini. You carry one device, unfold it when you need more room and leave the small tablet at home. Except I’m not yet convinced that it is there. In fact, after the most recent Apple event where they launched other products as well as the iPhone...

Whenever I’m reviewing products over at my YouTube channel, The Spark! , there’s one thing that always leaves me feeling a bit disappointed: opening the box and finding a USB-A-to-USB-C cable. The product itself might have a nice, modern USB-C port, but the other end of the cable still expects me to use USB-A. And it got me thinking: why are we still using this? 📩 Subscribe to my regular(ish) new...

The basic Kindle has just become nearly 40 per cent more expensive in the United States, and similar list-price increases are appearing in the UK and parts of Europe. It has not gained a new screen, more storage or any major new features. Amazon has simply increased the US price of the 16GB basic Kindle from $109.99 to $149.99. The Paperwhite has also risen by $40, from $159.99 to $199.99. Amazon...

If I pick up a book, or open an eBook and see an author’s name on it, I assume that person wrote the entire book. Sure, they may have used an editor. Hopefully someone proofread it. Maybe the publisher suggested changes. But fundamentally, I have every right to believe the words came from the person whose name is printed on the cover. But it’s 2026, the world is going crazy over AI, and maybe that...

For years, the route into YouTube’s full Partner Programme has been fairly straightforward: reach 1,000 subscribers and rack up 4,000 hours of public watch time within 12 months. From February next year, that second number is changing rather dramatically. Instead of needing 4,000 hours of watch time, new creators will need 8,000. That’s quite a jump, particularly when the existing target can alrea...

Back in May, I wrote about a curious little trend that was beginning to emerge: the rise of tiny E-Ink readers. XTEINK had launched the X4, a pocket-sized e-reader that looked more like an enthusiast’s gadget than the beginning of a new product category (it had also not long since launched the X3). It was clever, certainly, but I wasn’t quite sure where it would ever be more than a niche within a...

The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft and the reMarkable Paper Pro Move are the two tablets I use when I want to get away from … tablets, such as my iPad. Both have colour screens, connect to the internet and allow me to read, write, annotate documents and organise my work. They even include artificial intelligence features. Neither is genuinely limited to a single function. Yet they both feel fundamentally...

Manufacturers will also be expected to provide replacement instructions, make batteries available for several years after a product is discontinued and avoid using software to block compatible replacement batteries. Not every product falls under the same rules. Smartwatches and fitness trackers, for example, have recently been added to a list of exemptions because of the engineering challenges inv...

A few days ago, I was looking at buying a book. That should come as no surprise to anyone that knows me. The paperback was listed, as was the Kindle version. And the price difference was… small. Now, that’s not always the case. Sometimes the Kindle version is much cheaper. Sometimes there’s a deal and it’s 99p and you feel like you’ve somehow beaten the system. But more often than now, you see an...

Why is it that almost every form of media has drifted towards digital so completely that the physical version now feels like a niche product expensively released for enthusiasts and collectors… except one? Because somehow, after all these years, the humble book is still with us. 📩 Subscribe to my regular(ish) newsletter - https://markdkelly.substack.com ☕️ Buy me a virtual coffee - https://www.b...

The thing about technology is that, over time, it usually offers better value. You might spend roughly the same amount on your next laptop, tablet or phone, but it will probably come with a faster processor, more storage, a better display and longer battery life. That’s been the pattern for decades. Technology has continued to improve, while the value we’ve received for our money has generally imp...

I’ve noticed something over the last year or two, and I can’t quite decide whether it’s a genuine shift in technology or whether I’m simply noticing it more because of the products I spend my time reviewing. 📩 Subscribe to my regular(ish) newsletter - https://markdkelly.substack.com ☕️ Buy me a virtual coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/markdkelIy75 I've collated a massive list of all my favo...

Apple announced new AI features across iPadOS 27, improvements to Photos, Notes and Safari, updates to child safety tools, and a collection of smaller changes that may not make flashy headlines but could make everyday use a bit better. And if, like me, you use an iPad as your daily driver, those quieter improvements often matter just as much as the big showy ones. 📩 Subscribe to my regular(ish) n...

I recently reviewed the Cuneflow AI Notebook on my YouTube channel, The Spark and I wrote up a review of it on this platform too. Making this video and writing the article got me thinking a bit more deeply about something we’re going to see more and more of: the growing use of AI in E Ink products. And this raises a fairly important question. How much AI do we actually want in our quiet tech? 📩 S...

While most technology keeps getting bigger, faster and more complicated, e-readers seem to be moving in the opposite direction. Devices like the BOOX Palma, XTEINK readers, and even homemade projects are exploring the idea that reading might actually work better on smaller, simpler devices designed to compete with distraction rather than become another source of it. 📩 Subscribe to my regular(ish)...

For a brief while, it seemed obvious how this story would end. We’d already watched one format after another get replaced by something newer, smaller, and easier to live with. Vinyl gave way to tapes, tapes gave way to CDs, CDs gave way to downloads, and downloads gave way to streaming. Each new step promised less clutter, better portability, and easier access. Most of the time, convenience won. S...

I think reMarkable’s latest product, the Paper Pure, reveals something important about the digital paper market: progress in this space doesn’t always mean adding more. In most corners of tech, the logic is very familiar. More apps, more features, more notifications, more flexibility, more ways for one device to become six devices metaphorically glued together. The assumption is that the more a pr...

Kindle Scribes, reMarkables, BOOX tablets, Supernotes, and other premium digital paper devices can cost several hundred pounds. In some cases, once you add the accessories, you are well past the £700 mark. And for plenty of people, that pricing looks faintly ridiculous. 📩 Subscribe to my regular(ish) newsletter - https://markdkelly.substack.com ☕️ Buy me a virtual coffee - https://www.buymeacoff...

Over the few couple of videos and articles, the Kindle ecosystem has come up quite a bit. First, with older Kindles losing support, and then again in my last video/article about how buying a digital book usually means buying a licence to read it rather than owning it in the same way you own a physical book. The comments on those videos over at my YouTube channel - The Spark! - have been interestin...

I think millions of people have tapped ‘Buy’ in an ebook store and just assumed they were buying a book. The fact is most of the time, they weren’t. What they were actually buying was permission. Permission to read a file, on approved software, through an account, inside a company’s system. 📩 Subscribe to my regular(ish) newsletter - https://markdkelly.substack.com ☕️ Buy me a virtual coffee - h...

Every so often, a tech company says something that sounds routine on paper and rather less routine once you look at what it actually means in real life. Amazon has just done exactly that for owners of older Kindles. 📩 Subscribe to my regular(ish) newsletter - https://markdkelly.substack.com ☕️ Buy me a virtual coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/markdkelIy75 I've collated a massive list of all...

I didn’t expect to write this, but Apple may have just proved that my iPad Pro, the device I use for just about everything, isn’t actually the best tool for the job. And the frustrating part is that it’s been beaten by a cheaper, “weaker” Mac. 📩 Subscribe to my regular(ish) newsletter - https://markdkelly.substack.com ☕️ Buy me a virtual coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/markdkelIy75 I've co...

Usually, in an episode of The Weekly Spark I’d round up what’s been happening in the worlds of Kindle, E Ink, iPad, and related tech. But this week I want to park the usual news format and focus on something that’s been rattling around in my head for a while now. 📩 Subscribe to my regular(ish) newsletter - https://markdkelly.substack.com ☕️ Buy me a virtual coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/...