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A blog wherein a literary agent will sometimes discuss his business, sometimes discuss the movies he sees, the tennis he watches, or the world around him. In which he will often wish he could say more, but will be obliged by business necessity and basic politeness and simple civility to hold his tongue. Rankings are done on a scale of one to five Slithy Toads, where a 0 is a complete waste of time, a 2 is a completely innocuous way to spend your time, and a 4 is intended as a geas compelling you to make the time.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

It Isn't Just Me

Somebody with a cold weather Kindle casualty clearly doing the Google thing, as this comment was just added to my post from two years ago...

I can sympathize with you on this topic. I left my 12 day old Kindle in the pocket of my car door for a few hours while the temperatures here were between 5 and 23. I thought about it at the end of the day and brought it inside. The next day when I turned it on, I had a screen similar to what you describe - top 2/3rds is wallpaper and the bottom 3rd is barcode-like. Amazon is being kind to replace it, but considering that I haven't even had this one 2 weeks, it shouldn't be having this problem.
By LDZPLN1 on Death of a Kindle on 12/7/10

...which makes me wonder again on whether or not to look into a class action suit that might force Amazon and other marketers of eInk devices to be more upfront about their limitations. In a day and age when everything we buy comes buried with warnings on things that are so very obvious, why don't these warn against the rather not so obvious?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had no idea cold weather would hurt a Kindle. Glad they're replacing it.

Books don't malfunction if left in the cold. Just saying. :D

Nathan said...

I just got a Kindle; this is a good tip. I love the thing so far, so it would be awful if it froze to death in a chilly winter.

And it is odd that this got past testing. People leave stuff in their cars all the time (or if you put it in say, an airplane suitcase, there's a decent chance the cargo bay would be frigid). I got a new Kindle 3 so I don't know if this is still an issue, but I'm sure as hell not going to put it in my freezer to test it! :P

Kaz Augustin said...

I'll say it here because you have a bigger audience, Joshua, but I'm very disappointed with the reading life of an e-ink device. My iRex (Irex? ireX?) lasted no more than 2 years before previous pages of text started seeping through into the current one I was reading.

Maybe the technology now is better, but I'm still keeping my ears open regarding e-ink displays and their longitudinal quality. No more for me! I'm going backlit LCD for my next one, bugger the battery life. My Ipaq, before it gave up the ghost, was a perfect little e-reader.

Unknown said...

Mine just bit it this morning. Had it since April. Looks like I'll be reading on my iPhone until I can afford an iPad.

Anonymous said...

"And it is odd that this got past testing."

Operating temperature — 32°F to 95°F

Stated in the specs.