Andy Walker repurposed a 2019 Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8.0 into a full “Kindle killer” by resetting it, debloating it with Canta and Shizuku, choosing a lightweight launcher, tuning display and battery settings, and building a reading-focused app setup. The goal:
The old tablet in his office drawer wasn’t broken. It was worse than that—it was becoming irrelevant. So Andy Walker did what a lot of people do when tech moves on too quickly: he gave a 2019 Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8.0 a second life. and tried to build something Amazon-style e-readers can’t quite match.
He starts with the premise that makes the whole project feel personal. Walker says he loves the idea of a simple device that condenses thousands of books into one place. but he doesn’t like the risk of being locked into hardware that can be “effectively bricked. ” pointing to Amazon’s move against devices released before 2013.
So he went looking for hardware that would only ever be “paperweight” if he let it. He bought it locally from a device repo—what he calls “the decrepit device drawer in my office”—and set out to turn it into a long-lasting e-book setup he could actually customize.
It’s not a high-end slate. The Galaxy Tab A 8.0 he uses is small and lightweight. with 32GB of storage and a microSD card slot. an 8-inch display. and a 5. 100mAh battery that he says still takes ages to drain seven years later. In his view, that combination makes it practical for reading, while still flexible enough to go beyond novels.
Once he’d pulled the tablet into his project, the first move was the unglamorous one: a factory reset. In his step-by-step walkthrough, he directs users to go to Settings > System > Reset options > Erase all data to clear apps and residual data before doing anything else.
After that, the tablet needed cleaning in a more specific way. Walker describes “debloating” as critical on older Samsung devices because of the extra apps and services he says slow older hardware down. But he also notes a limitation: users can’t uninstall everything by default.
To get around that, he says he installed two apps—Canta and Shizuku. Shizuku provides the permissions Canta needs. and Walker warns that Shizuku has “a minor learning curve. ” but says the app’s own instructions should carry users through. From there, Canta becomes the tool to uninstall unwanted software.
In his own case. he trimmed apps and services including Facebook. Meta services. unnecessary Samsung apps. and other items he “doesn’t need. ” emphasizing that he can’t tell readers what to remove because the choices are personal. His point is that the job is doable without turning the tablet into a fragile mess.
Then came the part that surprised him with how much it mattered: the launcher. Walker calls it the “most important facet” of the device that isn’t the reader app itself, because it’s what ties everything together.
He tried Niagara first. but says it wasn’t a good fit for his “dated tablet.” After that. he found Mako. describing it as an open-source launcher with a retro-minimalist look and mild organizational features. With Mako. he set up three app groups—reading apps at the top. general apps in the middle. and everything he doesn’t need immediately below. He also notes that Mako lets him hide groups when required and that he finds it lightweight and faster than Samsung’s One UI.
The setup doesn’t stop at appearance. Walker then moves into display and performance changes designed to make reading feel more comfortable and the tablet feel less sluggish.
In Developer settings. he changes the Minimum width value. and says he landed on 555 as a “comfortable level” for the Galaxy Tab A 8.0. He also points to his reference point: his Galaxy S24 FE is currently set at 526. He decreases Window, Transition, and Animator scales to 0.5x, aiming to make animations feel faster.
Back in standard device settings, he enables Adaptive brightness, sets Eye comfort shield to Always on (with the red level adjustable), sets the Screen timeout to 5 minutes, and schedules Dark mode to turn on at 6 PM and off at 9 AM.
For battery behavior, he says he makes sure apps he doesn’t use often are put to sleep, typically under Settings > Battery.
On performance, he adds another tweak through Developer settings: Background process limit set to “At most 3 processes,” which he says fits a 2GB RAM device that “won’t facilitate heavy multitasking.”
Only after all of that does he get to what most people expect when they imagine a Kindle replacement: the e-book reader app.
Walker says there are “many, many” options on Android and no single consensus on the best one. He personally uses Moon+ Reader, but he offers readers a selection. His recommendations include Moon+ Reader for its shelf display that shows books on the device at once. plus highlight colors and underline options; he calls the premium version “a little pricey” but says it’s worth it for serious use.
He also lists Readera as a free alternative with “useful tools. ” calling it an ad-free option that supports various formats and works well on lighter devices. For a middle ground, he points to Librera, which he describes as more utilitarian but useful for organizing large libraries. He also notes a “musician mode” if someone plans to use the tablet for music files.
Even after the reader app is installed. Walker argues that the tablet’s advantage is what you can do around it. The whole point of the project, for him, is that a tablet isn’t limited to reading. But he also offers a caution: it’s easy to fall into the “install all the things” mentality—especially on a device that can handle it.
Instead, he urges installs to stay focused on the core use case: reading.
His list of additional apps is built around keeping information accessible and extending what reading can mean on a color screen device.
He installs Hacki for faster forum and news reading experience. describing it as an open-source app that focuses on displaying Hacker News comments and news articles. For news aggregation. he tries Kagi News as an experiment to move away from Google News; he says the app uses AI to condense news from multiple sources into a single digestible article.
He adds Forkyz. calling it his favorite crossword app and one of the best open-source games that downloads puzzles from various sources. For audio. he points to Libre Librivox Listener. noting that Librivox provides free access to numerous novels and that Libre Listener is an open-source app that provides audiobook support.
For public domain books, he installs Myne, saying it makes it easy to find and download books from Project Gutenberg.
He also includes Raindrop to save articles and long-form content for later reading, and RedReader as his Reddit choice on both phone and tablet—partly because he uses it to find longform content to stock up in Raindrop.
For reference while reading, he lists Wikipedia, describing how it allows users to silo Wikipedia-specific searches. For RSS reading, he uses Your News to read articles from “major global sources” and “local news outlets.”
He adds WordWeb as a dictionary accessible through a long-press menu, saying it’s especially helpful when reading dense works from Joyce.
On the practical side of moving files, he includes LocalSend as an open-source, multi-platform tool for sending files from a PC to the tablet, from phone to tablet, and sending books to his fiancée’s devices.
For web content, he installs Hermit as a single-site browser that makes it easier to set up web pages as apps, and says he uses it exclusively on his tablet to access Samsung Food, since the Samsung Food app doesn’t work on the slate.
And to keep assistant tools from multiplying across the home screen, he installs AI Hub, which he says consolidates more than one AI assistant into a single app—offering over 90 options at present, including Consensus and ChatGPT.
He stresses this isn’t a complete list, but he calls these “certainly the reading-adjacent apps,” keeping the project framed around how an Android tablet can support reading rather than turn it into a gadget hobby.
Accessing content, though, is the hurdle he returns to. For people who already have an Amazon account, he says they can install the Kindle app. For purchasing within the Amazon ecosystem. he acknowledges it’s “a little more difficult on old Android tablets” but says it’s still possible. and that the Kindle app or downloading books through Google can still work.
For free books, he points back to Myne as a way to pull from Project Gutenberg and says Libby works with local libraries to allow remote renting.
If someone already has a library stored on a NAS or hard drive, he says Calibre is essential for managing content, and that Calibre can act as a server to browse various e-book reader Android apps, including Moon+ Reader. He also adds that Calibre has been around for nearly two decades.
In the end, Walker’s argument is less about beating a product on paper and more about keeping control. He says he took a Galaxy Tab that no longer fit demanding tasks and turned it into a reliable. long-lasting. “multifaceted e-book reader” where he can complete crosswords. read the latest news. study. find new recipes. and read books. He says there’s room to tweak it as he sees fit because “in short. ” he’s in control of his consumption experience.
And for him, the biggest difference from Kindle devices is the risk. He says there’s “no risk of Amazon bricking your repurposed Android tablet.”
He closes with an invitation: if readers have repurposed an Android tablet in a similar way, he asks them to leave a comment and describe what they’ve done.
Android tablet Kindle killer Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8.0 Canta Shizuku Mako launcher Moon+ Reader Readera Librera Project Gutenberg Calibre Libby AI Hub LocalSend
Kind of cool but also why not just buy a used Kindle.
So he turned a tablet into a Kindle but… still a tablet lol. I feel like it’ll still be distracting with apps and notifications. Unless he makes it like one button only.
Wait Amazon bricked old devices? I thought that was like jailbreaking stuff. If it was really that bad, I get why he’s worried. But then he’s using Samsung which can also slow down and die, so isn’t that the same problem just different branding?
This sounds like a lot of fiddling like Canta and launchers and “paperweight if he lets it”?? I’m not techy so I’m confused. Also who keeps an old tablet in an office drawer that long? Amazon already has the best deal anyway, they’re not gonna let this “Kindle killer” beat them, come on.