So back in September, before our European vacation, I gave Better Half a WiFi-only Kindle
Unfortunately, this is also the third unit we have had in the past four months… and they all did almost exactly the same thing, even the current one.
All three started out fantastically, doing everything you expected a Kindle to do… until they start refusing to turn on when you push the rocker button. Then, when they eventually do turn on (sometimes a forced reboot is necessary to accomplish this – i.e. holding the rocker button over for 30 seconds), they sometimes go into a spastic, repetitive self-reboot cycle wherein they lose track of progresses in books, and have to rebuild their entire book database. Finally, the battery occasionally goes from full to dead in about two days, with about 6 hours of reading included, and no wireless time at all. The “refusing to turn on” bit happens about every other day, the “ZOMG, reboot-o-matic” happens about every other time we need to manually reboot it, and the “whoops, dead battery” has happened about once a month now. The Kindle lives in its official Amazon case, gets used, at most, about three hours a day,
Every time we call up Amazon, their response is basically an approximation of, “Yeah, that is not normal,” they box up and second-day mail us a brand new unit, and we send back the old one… but given that we are on the third device, and it is still showing the same symptoms of an impending demise, we are starting to get a little frustrated.
Is there something we could be doing wrong (this seems hard, given how locked-down the Kindle’s OS is)? Is anyone else having this problem? Should we just jump ship and head elsewhere for our ebook system?
I haven’t had any of those problems with mine (same model as yours). Dunno…
That’s very odd. I have the 3G/WiFi version of the new Kindle and haven’t experienced any problems at all (and I use the crap out of it).
I am curious though, you say the Kindle will lose your position in books? Do you periodically do a sync on your Kindle? When you perform a sync information including the position you are in your books is uploaded to Amazon’s server. I find it useful when switching over to other devices but it may be useful for when your devices goes into reboot Hell (unless you’re already syncing in which case I’m really confused if that information is being lost).
I’ve had two Kindles now (both the larger model, 2nd and 3rd generation), and neither showed anything like the problems you are experiencing. Unless there’s something specifically wrong with the smaller or WiFi-only models, your problems are not normal.
I do have some advice on the battery issue: make sure you are turning off wireless whenever you aren’t actually downloading books. This jumps battery life for me from 2-3 days to a week plus (both figures including heavy usage of 4-6 hours a day). I believe that even when you think it’s off, the thing still checks for books occasionally if wireless is turned on.
Sctrach an inconspicuous site (like the inside of the battery compartment) with your knife. See if they keep shipping you the same lemon back/
I and several members of my family have had Gen 2 Kindles since they came out without any problems at all, and all have seen heavy use. However, a friend of mine bought the Wifi only model and has had them same difficulty, having it replaced once since purchasing it in August. It may be that this problem is specific to that model.
+1
If they’re not doing that, and you still have the same problem with the next one, then it’s time to consider switching to another reader – the Barnes & Noble Nook is a good one. The only problem then is dealing with any DRM’d books you’ve paid for.
For me, lugging around a dedicated book-reading gadget is a bigger pain than carrying paper books. The Android Kindle app puts all my books on my phone and syncs with Kindle on my two computers.
@bluesun – What version of the OS are you running (it is listed at the bottom of the screen when you go into the settings)?
@Christopher Burg – By and large, Better Half leaves the wifi off, so I do not think the Kindle has the opportunity to synchronize its position with the cloud… as it is, when it goes into full reboot mode, it not only loses her current position, but it also loses her bookmarks, which caused no end of annoyance.
@TriggerFinger – Unfortunately, we generally leave the wifi off… We used and abused it overseas when it was often our only access to the internet (and it does work, just not well), and that drained the battery like a gorramed Dyson, but aside from that, the only things that should be affecting it are turning on the system and changing pages.
@Weer’d Beard – They send us new units before we send our current one back, so the only one that could have gotten “recycled” is our current one… I have to give Amazon credit – they have been responsive thus far, but we are starting to get worried that three such complaints might (rightly) push the bounds…
@Katie – Could I ask you the favor of getting in touch with that friend and seeing what his specific problems were? We are really starting to get worried that we are doing something wrong, and have no idea what it is or how to fix it… three duds is something of a stretch
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@Jake – Thankfully, we have not yet purchased an electronic book… Between Baen’s online library, and Amazon’s free books, life is good. Or was.
@hecate – The Kindle was more than useful on our European vacation (we kept all of our reservations, maps, directions, and points of interest on it, as well as the books we wanted to bring, and it took up next to no space), and I can definitely see its use for military folks with limited space requirements… but, aside from that, I definitely prefer the feel of a real book. That said, the Kindle’s screen is perfect for long-term reading, and significantly superior to that of any phone I have seen yet.
My friend says his kept re-booting on it’s own. One day it did it over and over and it drove him crazy. He said he couldn’t read it at all that day. That is when he called Amazon and they sent him a new one.
If you decide to jump ship to the nook, I can tell you I chose it over the Kindle for the following reasons:
1. ePub format compatible
2. user-replaceable battery
3. expandable memory
I’m pretty happy with it, thus far. They also just released a software update that purportedly improves the cataloging system significantly, though I haven’t played with it much yet.
What she said. Plus, having the touch screen below the e-ink screen gives B&N more flexibility in functionality, too. It works as a keyboard instead of the Kindle’s hardware keyboard, it shows the device menus for functions like searching and looking up words without obstructing the text, and when it’s off you can swipe across it to turn pages instead of using the hardware buttons. It also allows you to browse the store or your device library by covers rather than pure text.
The recent software update also increased the speed it turns the pages at, too.
@Katie – Yup, pretty much exactly what we were experiencing… good to know we were not alone, I suppose
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@Laurel – The Nook is pretty much the only other significant option out there, so that is at the top of our list if this one keeps misbehaving… At the time of purchase, I really liked the full support of Amazon behind it, but apparently that is coming at a cost of lots of other people not being able to play with Kindles due to the way the Amazonians have them locked down (for instance, our library is going to start supporting lending books to every major reader out there… except Kindles).
@Jake – I was actually eyeing up the newer version, especially with the eventual rooting capacities and the fact that it is scant more than a very large Android tablet…
If you’re looking to cheat and make it a tablet, I would actually suggest going with something like the Galaxy Tab, instead. It’s the same size, comes with full Android functionality, and you won’t have to worry about B&N coming back with a software update that kills whatever hacks you’ve used to get additional functionality out of it. You can get the Nook app for Android for free, which will give any Android tablet essentially the same functionality as the Nook Color. It also has both a back and front camera and GPS, which the Nook Color doesn’t.
Linoge: I left a comment this morning, but it looks like it’s gotten caught in the spam filter. If not, let me know and I’ll try to repost it again (I’ve tried, but it calls it a “duplicate” and won’t post).
Thanks for the heads-up… it seems everyone’s spam-catching systems have been getting a little twitchy these days.
That said, good call on the Tab… Android tablets were not quite as numerous back when I was considering options for jumping ship, and now that you mention it, there are all kinds of options for the full-functionality desires. All the more reason this Kindle had better start behaving…
Do you have the Amazon cover (without the built-in light)? I recently upgraded to the 3rd generation and bought the Amazon cover and have been having the reboot issue several times a day. I finally discovered that the cover without the built-in light is apparently causing a short (the metal hooks that holds it in place) that causes the reboot. I have taken mine out of the case and, so far, everything is looking good.
Fortunately or unfortunately, we just have the normal Amazon case… but it has the same kind of metal clips to hold the Kindle into place. Better Half has not been leaving it in the case of late, and it seems to be working… I wonder if both models have the same problem?
The normal one is the problem case, not the lighted one. The lighted one apparently doesn’t cause the short. Sorry if I was unclear. I haven’t had any problems since I took it out of the case.
Ah, nope, that was just me misreading
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We called up Amazon tech support, and while they admitted it might be the case, especially since it has not misbehaved since we removed it from that case, they wanted to do the full tech assist interview, and run it past their eggheads. We will see, but it looks like they are actively trying to solve these problems, and have finally acknowledged that simply throwing a new one at us may not be the best way…