Sorry to hear about your Pit experience, and that the Paperwhite died after two years.
For what it’s worth, my Kobo Clara has lasted 5 years without issue, and the Libra, 3 so far. Both are still in use. But then again, my several Kindles lasted even longer, and I eventually resold them to upgrade. Nobody ever contacted me about issues there, either. But… consumer electronics being what they are (mass manufactured at the lowest costs), once in a while someone is abound to get one that malfunctions sooner than it should Sorry…
The Libra has worked great, and I really love the physical buttons: IMO they are totally worth the slight upcharge, as they make reading much more enjoyable (no fighting the touchscreen, especially in wet conditions). Though if you didn’t have them on the Paperwhite, I guess you wouldn’t miss them here either.
FWIW, I’d forgotten all about the post I made here over 7 years ago, but my Kindle Paperwhite is still doing fine, and it’s probably at least 8 years old if not more. The battery life isn’t what it used to be, but it’s still adequate, and I actually have a replacement battery if I ever get around to prying the thing open.
I love my Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition (fancy name…just a Kindle). I have only barely tried other e-readers though (mainly poking at a friend’s one or in a store).
I haven’t seen any one that is better than a Kindle. They are fine but none are what I consider “better” either. Amazon has more books/magazines/etc so Kindle seems best IMO.
FWIW I still MUCH prefer an actual book/magazine to reading on a Kindle. But, when traveling, the Kindle is great.
Kindle also has a lot of useful software features that have nothing to do with the e-reader itself, but Amazon’s massive troves of data. Things like X-Ray, or popular annotations, or real page numbers that correspond to the print books, or syncing your place across the ebook and audiobook versions, a family library, etc. None of those are available on Kobo. The built-in Wikipedia lookup was nice too. Kobo just has a very basic dictionary.
Kobo is a really barebones, “just the book” experience that’s fine for reading, but miss all the other benefits of having an actual ecosystem of print books + audiobooks + ebooks + massive userbase + a huge swath of the world’s software developers + the wealth of Amazon.
BN Nooks are even further behind, as far as I know. (But their brick and mortar stores have gotten a lot better in recent years!)
I don’t, probably because most of my reading is done in bed, in dim light. A traditional Kindle would be worse than a paper book for readability in dim light, but the Paperwhite is fantastic, and compared to a book, it weighs practically nothing.
I wish somebody would make e-ink eye-tracking glasses that you can put on to read by yourself, and it’d just auto-scroll whenever you finished a paragraph. e-readers have spoiled me so much that my book-holding muscles have all atrophied…
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not recommending a Kindle instead, but Amazon typically gives their customer service people a lot of power to make things right for you, for some arbitrary definition of “right”.
In your other thread, they initially offered you a 15% discount on a replacement (despite it being out of warranty), which you negotiated to 20%. If you kept trying, and escalated to a manager, you can probably get them to give you even more of a concession (especially if you have a lot of other purchases with them). IF you wanted to. You could probably keep pestering them into sending you a refurbished replacement if you made enough of a stink about it.
Before I quit Amazon, I had numerous interactions with their customer support staff and they were able to eventually resolve every single issue I’d encountered, but it would sometimes take a bit of time and several escalations. As with any customer service, just don’t take no for an answer if you believe you’re being reasonable, and just keep escalating and escalating. That doesn’t mean “be a dick”, obviously, but polite, calm, clear, and firm.
I have a lot of issues with Amazon’s ethics as a business, but they are kinda famous for their good customer support. In my 20+ years as a customer they have never once failed to make things right for me, even for expensive things like laptops. They absorb a lot of losses (and cut corners elsewhere) just to make things right with their customers.
If “my Kindle broke shortly after the warranty” is really the only gripe you have with them, it might just be worth another convo with customer support… if you want to spend the time.
Even if it’s been more than a few days since the last chat, just bring up the previous offer and ask to speak to a manager. I’m sure that timeframe doesn’t really matter. 20% off a Kindle is nothing to them and if you tried harder I bet you could get a bigger discount or a free replacement…
Totally up to you! I don’t think there’s anything magical about the Kobos that would ensure they won’t break the week after their warranty expires It’s just luck of the draw.
And Rakuten is a Japanese company with a different customer service culture, so if you run into issues, I’m not sure how that will go (never had to deal with their support staff). (Edit: Actually, it seems like Kobo is a Canadian subsidiary of the Japanese company. But it’s the Rakuten store and account that you’ll use for ebooks.)
Sorry…