Mine is two years old so no point contacting Amazon, from searching it seems that I'm not alone ther seems to be a failure rate of about 7% for kindles which is the lowest of all the ebook readers.
Colin
Colin
Broken Kindle
- Thread starter dean4442
- Start date
-
Hey Guest, Early bird pricing on the Summer Moot (29th July - 10th August) available until April 6th, we'd love you to come. PLEASE CLICK HERE to early bird price and get more information.
i had this happen to mine i contacted amazon mine was 16 months old so they sent me a new one you then put the old one in the box and send it back to them they will sell you a new one at a reduced cost if you don't get a new one out of them so if you just want the same kindle that might be the way to go hope this helps
My wifes kindle broke (sat on it and broke screen). Amazon sold her a refurb for a very good price. She didn't want to upgrade to the new touch or paperwhite - she likes the little keyboard.
Speak to Amazon - they have excellent customer service and will sort you out. You should certainly expect a kindle to last longer than 3 years.
Speak to Amazon - they have excellent customer service and will sort you out. You should certainly expect a kindle to last longer than 3 years.
You should - and they don't
I beg to disagree on Amazon - their customer service stinks. A device that fails in fourteen months should not need you to "pay for a refurb" (accepting that accidental damage is different) - it should be replaced free of charge.
I have had my own bad experiences with Amazon and will never buy electronic devices - or their absurd, highly restrictive, proprietary, electronic files again.
Bear in mind that you do not own your Kindle files - any Kindle book you get from Amazon still belongs to Amazon, not you - you are merely granted limited use of it for as long as it suits them and no longer. If you buy a book you own it. If you must have an electronic file reader - why buy one as restrictive as a KIndle? There are better, cheaper, file readers available.
How long is the guarantee on many electrical objects that are now common place in the home Red? You advocate using the small claims court (previous post of yours in the last day or so) and yes, it works where applicable. Which 'better cheaper file readers' do you use?
Can you enlighten us on how the Kindle is restrictive (taking into account you've never owned one I believe)?
As for Amazon customer service it happens to be very good, certainly when you buy goods shipped direct by them, certainly on a par if not better than many big national online sellers.
You don't like ebooks and thats fine, many of us do so leave it out now chap because your diatribe on the subject has run its course.
No Richard, I will not be "leave it out" because you and I do not see eye to eye. My experience with appalling Amazon service when selling electronic files is with their talking books arm (Audible.co.uk). On this service they marketed talking book players for a variety of platforms (including in my case, Blackberry). They sold users talking books on the basis that they would play on these platforms - and then withdrew support for the platform including removing the players.
Their attitude to this was "oh, you have hundreds of pounds worth of talking books that you can no longer play? Tough".
That is not good customer service in my view.
Kindle is restrictive because you cannot, for example, sell your e-books - which you can with a physical book, a pdf etc.
I have used a Kindle, a Nook, and others - the Nook e-reader is cheaper, and has a backlight option which the Kindle lacks at the price point.
Kindles have been held up to being fragile and prone to failure by BBC Watchdog amongst others.
Please, because you are an Amazon fanboy, don't hide the truth from others.
Their attitude to this was "oh, you have hundreds of pounds worth of talking books that you can no longer play? Tough".
That is not good customer service in my view.
Kindle is restrictive because you cannot, for example, sell your e-books - which you can with a physical book, a pdf etc.
I have used a Kindle, a Nook, and others - the Nook e-reader is cheaper, and has a backlight option which the Kindle lacks at the price point.
Kindles have been held up to being fragile and prone to failure by BBC Watchdog amongst others.
Please, because you are an Amazon fanboy, don't hide the truth from others.
I disagree. In my case a refurb was offered (at a very good price) because I broke the thing - not because it was faulty. They didn't have to do that.
I've had nothing but excellent customer service from Amazon - even stuff I bought while visiting the US has been replaced in the UK under warranty. IMHO they are the gold standard when it comes to Customer Service.
With regards to the Kindle and being 'locked in'. If all I could load on the kindle was Amazon's DRM content, I might agree. But I can load any DRM free content I wish on the Kindle (and do). If want to own your content with the right to resell - i'm afraid you are going to have to buy a book
For those with an e-reader (not just kindle) check out Calibre http://calibre-ebook.com/
Now back to the hanging issue - I too had this some time ago, and it turned out to be due to the official 3rd gen kindle cover - the one which had little metal hooks which clipped into the kindle to hold it in. These same hooks were used to power the illuminated version of the official Kindle cover. There was a fault in the non-illuminated one which made it hang. If you are using a cover - try taking it off for a while and see if the problem goes away. If so, Amazon replaced the cover for me FOC.
I've had nothing but excellent customer service from Amazon - even stuff I bought while visiting the US has been replaced in the UK under warranty. IMHO they are the gold standard when it comes to Customer Service.
With regards to the Kindle and being 'locked in'. If all I could load on the kindle was Amazon's DRM content, I might agree. But I can load any DRM free content I wish on the Kindle (and do). If want to own your content with the right to resell - i'm afraid you are going to have to buy a book
For those with an e-reader (not just kindle) check out Calibre http://calibre-ebook.com/Now back to the hanging issue - I too had this some time ago, and it turned out to be due to the official 3rd gen kindle cover - the one which had little metal hooks which clipped into the kindle to hold it in. These same hooks were used to power the illuminated version of the official Kindle cover. There was a fault in the non-illuminated one which made it hang. If you are using a cover - try taking it off for a while and see if the problem goes away. If so, Amazon replaced the cover for me FOC.
Consider Moon+ Reader pro on android and 1000's of free books. Download and own for free . See also priject Gutenberg.
If you own a smartphone thete is no need to get tied up to anyone. My 2 p!
Sent via my plasma fuelled device
If you own a smartphone thete is no need to get tied up to anyone. My 2 p!
Sent via my plasma fuelled device
That's fine - we can disagree - that's the point of such threads - to provide a variety of perspectives. There are clearly Kindle fans - and there are many that are disappointed with them and Amazon (see the Watchdog quote above)
I don't want to own "content with a right to resell" - I just want to buy a book and to own it - the same as I always have. I enjoy giving friends a book I have bought, read and enjoyed - I can't with Kindle - which is annoying when the price is nearly identical. As you say - I'm better off with a book
I'm glad you are happy with your Kindle and with Amazon - they are not for me, but again, that's okay.
Calibre http://calibre-ebook.com/ will sort out a lot of what you say. There is no need to to be tied these days. Lots of free book banks like Gutenberg about with some remarkable (legal) books available to you.
Your sour grapes are understandable BR - i'd be annoyed too. A big of googling shows you can now side-load an Audible app on newer Blackberrys - but still not officially supported. There seems to be alot of finger pointing as to who instigated this- though - was it Audible, or was it BB now allowing the app on their platform? Interesting that an app is available outside of BBWorld though.
Last edited:
To be fair, when we got the kindle, there was not much choice of e-readers.
If you want to own a book in the traditional way, you will have to buy dead trees Without drm, it is difficult to lend a book in the traditional way. Amazon have a book lending programme in the US - but of of course the person you are lending to has to have a kindle With calibre, I can load any content I like - it does all the conversion, and even removes DRM!
If you want to own a book in the traditional way, you will have to buy dead trees
Without drm, it is difficult to lend a book in the traditional way. Amazon have a book lending programme in the US - but of of course the person you are lending to has to have a kindle With calibre, I can load any content I like - it does all the conversion, and even removes DRM!
Yep, I get that.
I am not averse to the idea of e-books - in fact I rather like it. But I think the current implementation is poor. Kindle editions should be far cheaper than hardback (and still make the same profit), but they aren't. Along with fragile hardware, lack of ability to "pass on" the book etc. its just not there *yet* - it will come though. As surely as digital music and movies have.
I blame them all
The VAT rate difference should go away shortly
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2467417/Price-ebooks-plunge-EU-orders-cut-VAT.html
At that point I think a fair price for an E-book will be about a third of a paperback - lets push it and say half. No print costs, no distribution costs, no "remaindered" write offs, no pulping. One file, sell as many times as you like. No real need for publishers at all.
There will be a huge opportunity for authors to take a fairer cut of the profits and avid consumers (like me) to afford and read more books. When I can buy the latest Bernard Cornwell for...lets say £3 or the new Ben Aaronovitch (fantastic new author) for £2.50, then I'll be buying a Sony e-reader (or whatever the non proprietary leader is then) like a shot!
The VAT rate difference should go away shortly
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2467417/Price-ebooks-plunge-EU-orders-cut-VAT.html
At that point I think a fair price for an E-book will be about a third of a paperback - lets push it and say half. No print costs, no distribution costs, no "remaindered" write offs, no pulping. One file, sell as many times as you like. No real need for publishers at all.
There will be a huge opportunity for authors to take a fairer cut of the profits and avid consumers (like me) to afford and read more books
. When I can buy the latest Bernard Cornwell for...lets say £3 or the new Ben Aaronovitch (fantastic new author) for £2.50, then I'll be buying a Sony e-reader (or whatever the non proprietary leader is then) like a shot!
I blame them all
The VAT rate difference should go away shortly
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2467417/Price-ebooks-plunge-EU-orders-cut-VAT.html
At that point I think a fair price for an E-book will be about a third of a paperback - lets push it and say half. No print costs, no distribution costs, no "remaindered" write offs, no pulping. One file, sell as many times as you like. No real need for publishers at all.
There will be a huge opportunity for authors to take a fairer cut of the profits and avid consumers (like me) to afford and read more books
As an author who saw aprox 10% of the cover price of the books I wrote - yes I would like authors to get a better deal: as a consumer I find that libraries are the best place to get books cheap: as a Luddite I just do not get the whole Kindle thing (unless where you are going on deployment has no library worth the name
)And once again Mr Red we seem to be of one mind when it comes to Authors - I eagerly await more from Ben!
I don't think the price of e-books will go down by more than 20% if vat goes away. Call me cynical
Sadly, neither do I - which is a lost opportunity
For me the real power of this technology is to make books cheaper and more widely accessible whilst offering a decent margin to authors and distributors. A man can dream though!
