In 2014 I bought my first Kindle. It was a then new Paperwhite, and it served me very well. A few years ago, I switched to reading my books on my iPad with the Kindle app, and thus the Kindle was (softly) retired. Then my wife “inherited” a Kobo reader, and I had to set it up for her. That means wipe the old owner’s information (she had passed away), and I got to experience the joy of reading with a crisp e-ink display.
That caused me to pull out the old Kindle, and to charge it up. I was ostensibly planning on wiping it to recycle it, but to do that I needed to charge the battery, and while I know the battery was fading (9 years of fairly heavy use will do that) but it does still hold a charge.
Once I got it charged enough to run it, I opened it up, and started reading.
Wow, I forgot how immersive it is to have a device that doesn’t distract you with a web browser, social media notifications, and news applications to capture your attention.
That got me thinking, perhaps I should upgrade it. Turns out that the latest generation of Paperwhite Kindles are close to the same form factor, but with a larger display, more responsive, and buckets of memory.
Since I have a few hundred titles I have bought from Amazon, and more than a thousand titles I have in my Calibre collection, going to a different reader isn’t really an option, as I am not going to abandon the books I have bought.
Why not just use the Kindle app on my iPad
Frankly, I have been using it for a couple of years, and it somewhat — uh, how to put this gently — sucks big tool. It often loses your progress, and (until recently) you can’t actually buy new titles from the app, but you end up having to go back to the web to place an order. I know, that is a minor nit, but it does bug you fairly often.
So, I am upgrading my well aged Kindle.
What Amazon has learned from Apple
I was able to knock 20% off the price of my new Kindle by trading in my old Kindle. They gave me a 20% discount. Of course, due to its age, it isn’t very valuable, but they are also giving me a $5 credit. So 20% + $5 knocks about $40 off the price of my new Kindle. Not too shabby.
It arrives on Wednesday.
My dad had one of the original Kindles. He rarely used it, and it sat in his desk for years. He ended up giving it to me, and I have purchased a few books for it, but I, too, almost never use it. I prefer my Android tablet with a PDF reader or e-book app. It has room for two micro SD cards (I got the 1 TB cards on sale last year), and I have yet to fill one, let alone both.
Glad you got one you like. Let us know if it’s any good.
It arrived yesterday, and it is a pretty big upgrade over my 2014 vintage one. The screen is much larger, it is more responsive. The form factor is almost the same, just a bigger display (less bezel).
I did have to log in. My recollection from the original one is that it came pre-tied to my Amazon account. But that is probably a security risk, so all I had to do was enter my 18 character password (it only took three tries to get it right, d’oh).
Back to reading my long list of books!