As most of you already know I have a Kindle. After playing with Sony’s first generation reader at both Target and Borders when they first came out I was a little put off of e-books. So, when my boyfriend got me a Kindle for our anniversary I was surprised. He had seen my sneaking peeks at it on the internet and then quickly closing the browser tab when he walked by. We did this dance often. I would look at it, and read the propaganda and listen to Maya Angelou talk about how she loved it then he would walk by and I would Alt-Tab out into a knitting page.
For a while, the Kindle page was my porn.
So I was sort of thrilled and surprised when he handed it to me on our anniversary. I never looked back, that is until the Kindle 2 came out. Again, the bulk of Amazon’s hits came from my IP address. However, I already had the item that I coveted just not the shiny new iPhone looking one. Sigh…
One of my co-workers, has the new Kindle 2 and we got to compare our Kindles and let them have a little play date. We both busted open our copies of American Gods and turned pages to see what the difference was in both layout and in page turning speed. To be honest, a mili-second is too fast for me to measure. It’s like when a packet on the network takes like 1 less mili-second to load. No one notices.
I did enjoy playing with the new Kindle, and if mine ever broke, I would replace it with a new one. That said… MY KINDLE BROKE this week.
So, I keep my kindle in a M-Edge case, and in my Levenger bag. I can’t even remember what the name of the bag is, because it’s really old. I love it though, it’s green suede and brown leather, it’s aged really well and cost me a fortune when I had my very first job. Anyway, I keep it there, and well that bag gets thrown around a lot.
My screen stopped working and started doing some funny stuff. I started to curse the gods of technology while simultaneously checking to see if Mercury was in retrograde while my boyfriend goes online to automatically get me a new Kindle. We order the Kindle 2, and then I go to bed. I lay down for a moment and then start thinking, well isn’t there some sort of warranty. I mean really this thing cost like $400 bucks when he got it for me, and I will be damned if we spend another $400 to replace a broken one.
Mind you that this is at like 11:30pm and I am laying in bed. So I call up Amazon, and would have probably called up Jeff Bezos himself if I had to, and guess what? They have 24 hour support. Now I always knew I loved Amazon for many reasons, especially lowering their prices at 2am when I’m shopping, but this was awesome. Not only were they open 24 hours, but so was Kindle support.
I told the representative that my screen broke and said, well you are still under warranty so we will send you a new Kindle 1. He took my information and then gave me a confirmation number. He said it would be shipped overnight and be to me by Friday afternoon. I canceled the K2 order, went to sleep, book deprived yet sated in the knowledge that this would all work out.
Low and behold it is now Friday and not only did they send me a replacement K1, its Brand Spanking New as in NOT refurbished. I am really impressed and just wanted to share that.
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6 Comments
Monday, March 16, 2009 at 8:56 am
I just bought the new Kindle 2, and I really love it.
Any technology is not going to be perfect, but for what I do. This unit is simply amazing. I love that it is slick. Much smaller than V1. I have the old unit, and this one blows away the old unit. Let’s be honest all new versions will blow away the earlier versions.
I like reading newspapers on it. One of the cool features.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 at 5:32 pm
I think that the Kindles would take away the fun in a book, but I never even seen one in real life, so I have no clue likely.
Glad to know that you were able to get a new one for free!
Thursday, March 19, 2009 at 4:52 pm
I have to admit that I was at first skeptical of what my reading experience would be on the Kindle. However the “ugly” design is actually so non-distracting that you begin to just forget what you are doing. My reading time as actually gone up with Kindle. My problem was when I finished one book I didn’t have anything to do until I either got a new one, or got home to my next read. With this, it’s right there. Finish one book, start another.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 at 8:32 am
I agree and if you want you can download one within seconds. I love it.
I haven’t tried reading newspapers on it. I’m not keen on paying monthly on something I don’t really care for.
But from what people were telling me they love the newspaper features on it.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009 at 6:33 pm
I bought my kindle for about $400 one year and one month ago. I loved it. I told everyone with ears that it was the best thing i ever bought, demo’d it for strangers, encouraged people to buy it. I carried it with me everywhere.
About two days after the one-year warranty expired, the screen began to fail. Just a line here and there on the screen. Then a few more. Then a few more. Yesterday, when I turned it on – just one little square of text showed in the upper corner.
I contacted Amazon. Sure enough, the answer is “too bad. your warranty expired. give us $180 if you want your kindle to work.”
Then I got online – and saw just how many people had the same experience.
I think that Amazon should sell this as a really awesome one-year product. Like a subscription.
It’s funny, I knew it felt cheaply made but I really didn’t think it WAS cheap. Turns out, I was wrong.
I’m more sad than angry. I believed in this product. I don’t anymore. And now that sony has announced that their ebook is $199, it’s hard to justify giving Amazon more money. I just don’t trust them anymore.
Thursday, August 6, 2009 at 12:22 pm
I have heard that people are starting to have issues with the Kindle after about a year of ownership. It sucks that you had the screen go out on you. I have not seen issues with my screen yet on the refurbished one. The one that broke, was totally because my bag got smashed. However I am curious as to the usage of your Kindle. How often did you use it? Did you get any early indication that the screen was going out? I am wondering if there are warning signs that could help others who are approaching their warranty’s end to go ahead and get it replaced prior to something happening.