Kindle? New one crashing?

A Kindle can “crash,” but it just reboots itself. It’s not a big deal. I think it has happened twice with my DX (owned since May 2010).

I also bought a smaller Kindle for my daughter. Within three months the screen was broken (not cracked, but showing up stripes over the text). Amazon replaced it free of charge. The only stipulation was that I had to return the broken one. They asked no questions except where I wanted it shipped. I was totally impressed with their service. There is a one year guarantee. And there is a phone number you can call for help. They are great.

Yes, you can get loads of free books for Kindle. There are many sites.

I created a lens about using Kindle for homeschool Maybe it will help you out a bit —

http://www.squidoo.com/kindle-for-homeschool

There are lists there of sites that offer freebies.

Just received my kindle and I am very pleased, I have 43 free books on it and a King James Bible with art by Durer for 99c.  I have tested it outside and it is spectacular in bright sonlight.  The 6″ screen is perfect for me, and it weighs very little.  I bought a nice case with light for it, so I can read in the car at night and all in all I am very pleased.  It will never take the place of a real book, but it is very useful for travel and being out and about.  I got the basic one, but it suits my needs.  I read that with the 3G version, you cannot access Yahoo mail anymore, so I will use my ipod touch for that when I am out.  The books downloaded onto the Kindle easily and I have had no trouble so far.  I am really very, very pleased.  Linda

it is the only reader out there with no back light.

There are actually several using the same screen technology including the Nook from Barnes & Noble and the Sony Reader. The Kindle is by far the most popular, though.

I read reviews on the new kindle and many are having constant issues of it crashing.

We’ve had one of the new models for a couple weeks now and it hasn’t crashed yet.

Also can you download books from sites other than Amazon onto your kindles with no troubles?

Yes, there are lots of sources other than Amazon. You have to load them through your computer instead of directly on the Kindle, though. For example, Project Gutenberg offers versions of their books formatted for Kindle. PDF files can be loaded but they often don’t work all that well because they are shrunk down to the Kindle’s small screen and reading through pan and zoom is pretty inconvenient.

Good tip on reading PDFs in landscape mode, suzukimom. I had forgotten that screen rotation was available though the menu on the Aa key. I overlooked it because I’m so used to the iPad where you just rotate the device and it adjusts automatically. 🙂 This makes some difficult PDFs much more tolerable.