23 February, 2012

Why My Next E-Reader Will Be A Kindle

Safe As Houses, Ma!
E-Readers And Why I Bought Them.

1) Sony PRS-505 after the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books Test Drive.

2) Sony PRS-505 as a gift for a family member.

3) Amazon Kindle 2 as a gift for a family member who uses Audible.

4) Sony PRS-300 as a gift for a family member.

5) Sony PRS-300 as a gift for a family member.

6) Sony PRS-350 for myself.

7) Amazon Kindle with Keyboard given to me.

8) Sony PRS-350 as a gift for a family member.

You can see I have been a Sony loyalist. Amazon and I have a bit of a history. (It's sort of like the whole Matlin / Carville thing but with less procreation.) Events transpired this week to flip me over to the Amazon loyalist side which fit nicely into my prior comments about service dominating an industry where price is no longer a primary consideration. First, Sony created the opportunity. You may recall that the stylus on the PRS-350 broke after 3 months of use. Sony does not consider it a warranty item and wanted over $65 to send me a new stylus. I've been making do without one.

Since I got the K3 as a gift I've used multiple readers. There are things I like about the K3 and things I dislike. I am very attracted to Sony from a design angle and (stylus aside) they have been quite durable for me. Recently I heard an odd sound when taking my Kindle out of it's case. Apparently I bent or dropped it and the screen was broken internally. While the bottom corner of the screen refreshes normally, the rest of it appears to have delaminated (for lack of a better term) leaving a permanent mixed media of graphics and lines. This section of the screen does not refresh. I called Amazon. Amazon apologized and is sending me a new Kindle by 2 day delivery.

I asked Amazon if they understood that I almost certainly broke the Kindle myself.  My customer service agent not only understood, he asked if 2 day service was quick enough as I was still under warranty and the screen was completely covered. A few seconds later I had a return address label for the broken unit. A few hours later I had a tracking number for the new unit. Cost to me? Nothing. Nada. Zero dollars and zero cents. While I am still attracted to Sony from a design sense, it would be the height of foolishness for me to purchase another product from them. Obviously, with price removed from the consideration and features being roughly equal, buying a Kindle is a no-brainer.

It really is all about the service.

5 comments:

  1. That happened to me, too. I cracked the case. Fantastic service. And you don't have to send the old one back until the new one arrives, so you can transfer your stuff.

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  2. Daughter's bf took kindle camping with her and four dogs.Kindle got broken. Bf called Amazon, told them he thought dog had stepped on it. Amazon guy said "let me put it this way, do you know how it got broken?" bf said no...they sent him new kindle.

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  3. Lynne - I totally need to clear the broken one, I have ARCs on it. Thanks for reminding me!

    Mitowa - I got nothing. Glad to see you. Just deleted about a dozen spam comments and I was like, hey! it's Mitowa! How do you like my mannequin? Love that photo no matter how I crop it. He was at the fair, encouraging kids that the ride was safe.

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  4. Personally, I'm the owner of a Kindle and I absolutely love it. It has so many great and interesting features... exactly how I want and need. I like to read my eBooks downloaded from All you can books on this great device. It's a really great experience and I can take it with me wherever I want, because it's small.

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