‘My Kindle display self-destructed’
Biz exec and ZDNet blogger Matt Asay loved his Kindle—the display, the number of book able to be stored, and the "feel." He planned to extol the K-machine to his readers.
But now, with the screen is dead, he has second thoughts.
What’s more, writing earlier in Boing Boing Gadgets, Joel Johnson reported his own screen disaster (photo). And so did John Biggs at CrunchGear.
Isolated incidents?
Are these just isolated incidents? I’d hope! In fact, Johnson believes he may have been expensively clumsy. Whatever the case, let us know—have you heard of other occurrences like the ones above?
Meanwhile such incidents are one argument for buying Kindles new rather than used. The word is that Amazon apparently will stand behind the machine you purchase from it, so you don’t have to buy another. Of course, meanwhile, you’re without an e-reader for your Kindle-only books. Nothing like the Tower of eBabel, eh?
Beyond screens, I’d be curious about other durability issues associated with the K-machine. How does it compare in such regards with the Sony Reader and other rival hardware?
Obvious disclosure: The TeleBlog, as an Amazon Associate site, is advertising new Kindles. I myself, however, might still go for a used one. Not sure. Make up your own mind.
Related: Amazon’s Kindle could save you money, in The Street.com. "Gosh, sometimes it costs $9.99 to buy popcorn and a soda, not to mention the cost of a movie," says Terry Savage, a TSC financial writer. "For the same dollars, you can stay home and read." Oh, but wait. What if Amazon changes its mind and stops fully supporting the current Kindle format, just as it stopped supporting the Adobe format? Or suppose you simply want to move on to another machine that can’t read files with K-DRM—and your Kindle screen breaks later on? Maybe Ms. Savage needs to learn more about ePub and DRM.
June 18th, 2008 at 8:43 am
The failing displays don’t seem to be an isolated incidents. My Bookeen Cybook display failed in a similar manner after a very short time. Since it was sitting on a table at the time of failure I don’t think it’s me.Repair is too expensive to be worthwhile(at 120 euro + shippping cheaper to buy a new unit which I’m not going to do at this time)