Kindle 4th gen: help needed

[Phssthpok]

I have inherited an old Kindle (4th gen, silver with a row of buttons along the bottom of the screen, non-touchscreen). I want to upload some books and give it as a present to someone, but it ignores any AZW3 files I copy across. It does however recognize MOBIs, but I hate MOBI as a format -- it doesn't display nearly as well as AZW3 (e.g. text justification).

I thought it might be a firmware version issue (I read elsewhere that Kindle 4s can handle AZW3, but I wasn't sure whether this was true with all firmware versions and couldn't find any info about that, and I couldn't find the firmware version) so I downloaded 5.1.0 (step 1 of 3 for upgrading to 5.3.7.3), copied it across to the root directory, and restarted. The "update" item on the menu is greyed out, and the bin file is just sitting there.

So I thought I'd double-check the firmware version. I checked how to do it, and was told to look at Settings > Device Info. This has the MAC address, serial number and "Network capability: Wi-fi", but no firmware version. At the bottom right of the screen it says "Kindle 4.0 (1308590058)". I have no idea what the "1308590058" means.

So my question is in several parts:
1) How do I find out my firmware version?
2) What does "1308590058" refer to?
3) What do I need to do to make this device recognize AZW3 files?

Thanks for any help you can give me!

[AnemicOak]

From what you posted above your firmware version is 4.0, but here's Amazon's help on determining software version...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custo...deId=201177290

The 1308590058 is a build number I believe.

The firmware updates you want are here...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custo...deId=200774090

That Kindle runs 4.x software so any type of 5.x software isn't going to work. The latest version for your device is 4.1.3


I don't recall if that device was supposed to have AZW3 support at launch (it came out around the same time as the AZW3/KF8 format did), but updating to the latest firmware should take care of things.

[tekkasit]

Quick question: I think that you might get DRM-protection problem. How you get AZW3 files at the first place?

MOBI file format is a non-protected file format, you can freely copy MOBI file into any devices and it allow you to read the content.

But AZW3 file format is difference, it's device-specific. You can't just simply copy DRMed AZW3 files from one Kindle e-reader device and put in another Kindle e-reader device and expect that it will work.

[Phssthpok]

Originally Posted by tekkasit

Quick question: I think that you might get DRM-protection problem. How you get AZW3 files at the first place?

Converted from EPUB using Calibre. I do this to read books on my Kindle; I converted to MOBI at first, but then found that AZW3 looks better. For example, justified text in MOBI just ends up left-justified a lot of the time (whenever the amount of extra space needed exceeds some quite low limit), but displays properly as AZW3 -- the rendering algorithm for MOBI seems to be a lot more primitive,

[Phssthpok]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

From what you posted above your firmware version is 4.0, but here's Amazon's help on determining software version...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custo...deId=201177290

You're right, it's 4.0. I thought it was the model number, but it's the firmware version.

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

I don't recall if that device was supposed to have AZW3 support at launch (it came out around the same time as the AZW3/KF8 format did), but updating to the latest firmware should take care of things.

According to Wikipedia, "The fourth/fifth/seventh generation Kindles... can display AZW, AZW3, TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, and PRC files natively." I'm now in the process of updating to 4.1.3, so I'll soon find out whether or not this is true...

[Phssthpok]

Originally Posted by Phssthpok

According to Wikipedia, "The fourth/fifth/seventh generation Kindles... can display AZW, AZW3, TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, and PRC files natively." I'm now in the process of updating to 4.1.3, so I'll soon find out whether or not this is true...

It is indeed true, it can now handle AZW3s.

Many thanks to AnemicOak for helping me sort this out!

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

The 1308590058 is a build number I believe.

It is the date the build was run, in seconds since the Epoch: in this case 17:14:18 UTC Mon 20 Jun 2011. (The build probably takes much more than a second: it's likely the time some crucial stampfile was written out or the build started or ended.)

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by tekkasit

MOBI file format is a non-protected file format, you can freely copy MOBI file into any devices and it allow you to read the content.

But AZW3 file format is difference, it's device-specific. You can't just simply copy DRMed AZW3 files from one Kindle e-reader device and put in another Kindle e-reader device and expect that it will work.

Either format can have DRM or not when delivered from Amazon. Whether or not any particular book has DRM is the publisher's choice.