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RIP Kindle
Mar. 26th, 2011 11:02 pmThe kids did something to my Kindle tonight, and now, alas, it has passed into the great electric heaven. Judging by the pattern of lines in the e-ink, my current hypothesis was that the cause was getting smashed by my water bottle in the fall when they knocked both off the shelf rather than the fall itself (as the Kindle has survived falls quite well previously, both with and without the cover). The main point of this post is not the death of the poor thing, however, but Amazon's fantastic customer service.
I had gotten the extended warranty for just such an occasion, so I dug up the paper from it and called the number about 10:00 pm tonight, right after I discovered the malfunction. I didn't actually expect to get an answer, but I did. The nice lady looked me up and said I was still within the original warranty. I said that it broke in a fall, so wasn't that an extended warranty thing? She said I was still in the original warranty and she'd transfer me to Amazon as it was up to them.
The nice Amazon lady asked what happened, confirmed my address, and said I'd get the new Kindle on Tuesday with a return label for the old one. The warranty info talks about a single replacement, but as the Amazon warranty says "normal wear and tear" rather than accidental stuff, I decided to confirm this and asked if my warranty was now void. She told me she didn't think so, but put me on hold to clarify just in case...and the answer is nope. Even though they're giving me a full replacement, my warranty is still in effect until April 16, 2012 if anything else happens. Amazing. Usually you have to pull teeth to get any warranty work done on things and they tend to try to get you with small print, but Amazon seems to be going way above and beyond. I already adored my Kindle. I'm now over the moon about the whole thing.
The only thing that sucks is that I got mine right before the new generation came out...and I don't like some of the features as much and the dimensions are different so I have to get a new case. Le sigh. Far better issues to have to deal with that not having one at all, that's for sure. I'll survive and the lighter weight will be even better on my hands.
The long and short of it is, though, that if you're in the market for an e-reader, get the Kindle. One of my in-laws got a Sony e-reader due to DRM objections and if something were to happen to that, there is no way Sony would treat them the way Amazon just treated me. Obviously Amazon is like this so they can continue to sell more books, but it's not like Sony treats its game customers like this either, so it still speaks well of them.
I had gotten the extended warranty for just such an occasion, so I dug up the paper from it and called the number about 10:00 pm tonight, right after I discovered the malfunction. I didn't actually expect to get an answer, but I did. The nice lady looked me up and said I was still within the original warranty. I said that it broke in a fall, so wasn't that an extended warranty thing? She said I was still in the original warranty and she'd transfer me to Amazon as it was up to them.
The nice Amazon lady asked what happened, confirmed my address, and said I'd get the new Kindle on Tuesday with a return label for the old one. The warranty info talks about a single replacement, but as the Amazon warranty says "normal wear and tear" rather than accidental stuff, I decided to confirm this and asked if my warranty was now void. She told me she didn't think so, but put me on hold to clarify just in case...and the answer is nope. Even though they're giving me a full replacement, my warranty is still in effect until April 16, 2012 if anything else happens. Amazing. Usually you have to pull teeth to get any warranty work done on things and they tend to try to get you with small print, but Amazon seems to be going way above and beyond. I already adored my Kindle. I'm now over the moon about the whole thing.
The only thing that sucks is that I got mine right before the new generation came out...and I don't like some of the features as much and the dimensions are different so I have to get a new case. Le sigh. Far better issues to have to deal with that not having one at all, that's for sure. I'll survive and the lighter weight will be even better on my hands.
The long and short of it is, though, that if you're in the market for an e-reader, get the Kindle. One of my in-laws got a Sony e-reader due to DRM objections and if something were to happen to that, there is no way Sony would treat them the way Amazon just treated me. Obviously Amazon is like this so they can continue to sell more books, but it's not like Sony treats its game customers like this either, so it still speaks well of them.
