How to Read Manga on the Kindle 5 and Kindle 7

Yes, the basic Kindles of 2012 and 2014 read manga. Both have a 600 x 800 screen with no light, and both are happiest with a MOBI file copied over USB.

The Kindle 5 and Kindle 7 at a glance

What that screen means for manga

A printed manga volume has a page of roughly 5 by 7 inches. At 6 inches this screen shows that page at about 69% of its printed size. At 167ppi the screen has about half the sharpness of a current e-reader. Bold art holds up; small dialogue is where it struggles.

This is why the device profile matters more than any other setting. A scan is drawn at print resolution, far larger than this screen. Left alone, the reader shrinks each page on the fly, slowly and without care for the lettering. A file converted for the Kindle 5 and Kindle 7 already has every page at exactly 600 x 800, with the greyscale tuned for e-ink, so nothing is resized on the device.

Getting manga onto the Kindle 5 and Kindle 7

First, convert:

1. Open Manga for Kindle 5/7 and drop in your files. CBZ and CBR are the usual inputs; ZIP, RAR, 7Z, PDF and EPUB also work.
2. Check that the device is set to Kindle 5/7. That is the exact name in the picker.
3. Leave manga mode on for right-to-left titles. Turn it off for webtoons and Western comics.
4. Look at the preview, then convert and download.

Then, transfer:

• Choose MOBI as the output and copy it over USB into the documents folder. This works on every unit, whatever its firmware.
• Send to Kindle is worth one try if you prefer wireless: send an EPUB to the device's Kindle email address. Delivery to a model as old as the Kindle 5 and Kindle 7 is hit and miss, so keep the cable as the fallback.
• USB has no size limit. The email route stops at about 50MB per file.

Can it open a CBZ without converting? No. A Kindle does not open CBZ or CBR files, whichever way they arrive. They have to be converted first.

How many volumes fit

A volume converted for this screen comes to roughly 15 to 25MB, depending on page count. That figure is scaled from our own conversions by pixel count, so treat it as a guide. With 2GB (Kindle 5) or 4GB (Kindle 7), that works out to about 60 volumes on the device at once.

Settings worth changing

• Storage is the real limit on the Kindle 5: 2GB fills up fast, so load a few volumes at a time.
• Neither model has a light, and manga greyscale needs good light to look right. Read near a lamp or the page looks flatter than it is.
• For double-page spreads, keep splitting on. A whole spread squeezed onto a 6 inch screen is too small to read, so each half gets a screen of its own, right half first for manga.

Is the Kindle 5 and Kindle 7 good for manga?

Fine for a series with bold art and large text. If small lettering matters to you, a second-hand Paperwhite 3 or later is the cheap fix.

For the wider picture, including where to get manga legally and how the other models compare, see Manga on Kindle.

Frequently asked questions