Kindle 1 battery life?

[KTamas]

Recently I got my hands on a second-hand Kindle 1 in mint condition. I have no idea how old the battery is in it, right now I can get about 2500 page-turns out of it. Also I did notice that slowly but surely it does lose some charge when in standby.

(wireless is permanently off since I live in Hungary so it doesn't work here)

I can see aftermarket batteries on Ebay on $20 and I wonder -- is it worth it? Will it provide a significant upgrade in battery life or ~2500 pages is about what I can get out of it?

I have to say by the way that I'm completely in love with this thing. (and I came from the Kindle Keyboard and also had a PW briefly. long story.)

[susan_cassidy]

I'm afraid that 2500 page turns doesn't mean anything to me. I can read a good, long book, and part of another one without charging. I always charge when the battery gets to 75%, as I was told that is best. I'm on my second battery, and it is probably worn down a bit. The second battery definitely helped when the first one got to where it was losing charge too fast.

[frostschutz]

2500 page turns doesn't sound bad for any ereader.

A replacement battery is only worth it if you are forced to charge while you actually read, when charging it every other day or overnight while you sleep is no longer sufficient.

[pidgeon92]

If you really love the thing, I don't think a $20 battery is unreasonable, though I'd wait for the current battery to degrade a bit more.

[sparklemotion]

Originally Posted by KTamas

I have to say by the way that I'm completely in love with this thing. (and I came from the Kindle Keyboard and also had a PW briefly. long story.)

You like it better than the kindle keyboard, yeah? That's interesting.

[AZImmortal]

Yeah, might I ask why you prefer it over the Kindle Keyboard? At the very least, the KK's display is supposed to be much better than older generations.

On an unrelated note (or perhaps related), I always found the original Kindle to be hideously ugly. To me, it looks like something that people in the 1970s would come up with if they were asked what technology in the distant future would look like.

[david8866]

Another one here prefers K1 over other generations (except DX).

The K1 battery life gets very very bad when the wireless is on (much much worse comparing K2 and K3, just if you wonder.) 2500 pages sound good, the battery is in good condition. I don't know about aftermarket battery; 6 months ago, I bought 2 new original Amazon batteries, they don't hold power well - I read somewhere, batteries once charged, they need to be charge once a while; if not, their life will be shorten. You can ask aftermarket battery sellers, they might know the manufacture date on those battery; some can even roll a new one for you.

[KTamas]

Originally Posted by susan_cassidy

I'm afraid that 2500 page turns doesn't mean anything to me. I can read a good, long book, and part of another one without charging. I always charge when the battery gets to 75%, as I was told that is best. I'm on my second battery, and it is probably worn down a bit. The second battery definitely helped when the first one got to where it was losing charge too fast.

2500 page turns means about 13-14k locations which translates into about 1500 paperback pages, give or take. take these conversions with a pound of salt.

[KTamas]

Originally Posted by sparklemotion

You like it better than the kindle keyboard, yeah? That's interesting.

I didn't say that, although I can see how my post can be interpreted that way

So the story goes like this: I've been a Kindle user for 1.5 years now, starting with a Kindle Keyboard. Over the course of the next ~14 months, three died on me. The first one just froze up one day and then kept freezing up immediately after it rebooted. The other two got broken screens, to this that I'm not entirelly sure how those happened, because I had them in a protective case and I really tired to take proper care of them, not throw them around etc.

So when my 4th KK (the replacement of the dead 3rd) arrived I've decided that this generation is just not durable enough for me and I sold it to a good friend of mine who's a happy user ever since.

I love(d) the KK: I think that durability issues aside it's a great device, a great Kindle, but I knew I'd somehow break the screen of the next one in a few months anyway. I didn't really like the K4S (those small page-turn buttons were a big turn-off for me), and I didn't want to get a Touch because I knew that a refresh with hi-res and backlight was imminent. So I went back to reading on my Nexus S / iPad 2 for a few weeks and waited for Amazon to announce the PW.

Now, I consider the K1 the most beautiful Kindle ever (sidenote: I'm also the person who thinks the X- and T- series of Thinkpads are one of the most beautiful laptops ever created, so... yeah.) and I wanted to get one for years beacuse of that. I didn't want it seriously enough to actually hunt one down on ebay, but when it popped up on Hungary's ebay clone about 2 months ago (at that time I was without an e-ink reader for a few weeks then) in great condition and for a good price, I just had to buy it.

Then last month Amazon announced the Paperwhite and of course I pre-ordered it a few days later, and it arrived last week (via Borderlinx). I spent about a week with it and then I sold it because of the now-infamous blotchy screen issue, although mine was actually one of the better ones: my screen looked almost exactly like the one that Ars Technica had (direct link to image). So a bright spot on the bottom left plus shadows plus slight pink discolorations on the bottom 25% of the screen. Yeah, I'm a bit OCD about this.

So now I only have the K1. But ever since buying it and using it for a few weeks I really fell in love with it. The keyboard, although I seldom use it is by far the best hardware keyboard they ever created; the big page-turn buttons are incredibly comfortable; and it feels great in my hands with that rubber back cover. It's just so ergonomic. Also, did I mention that it's beautiful? It also has the Apple kind of emotional attachment effect on me. (my main computer is a MacBook Pro, and I also owned other Macs before)

Of course, I can only load books through USB (and have to take that extra 30 seconds to remove the DRM if I buy a book, since I can't register it w/Amazon because of no US wireless here), and it's slower than the later Kindles and the navigation can be a bit clunky (although it has its charm) and I can't highlight sentences only lines and so on.

The contrast is obviously not as good as on the later Kindles, but nevertheless it is perfectly good enough for reading so I don't really give a damn about that one either.

Overall I couldn't care less about all of its shortcomings becase in the end of the day despite the fact that it's almost a 5-year-old device, it's still a perfectly good e-ink reader and I can read my books just as well as on any other Kindle.

I will keep an eye on the whole PW screen quality issue and if the situation improves I may consider buying one again because screen issues aside the PW was great.

tl;dr version: KK is a great Kindle however I had 3 of them die on me; got a PW but sold it a few days after because of the slight blotchiness; despite it's shortcomings the K1 is a beautiful and ergonomic device that's still a perfectly good e-reader even after 5 years.

[KTamas]

Also thanks for your responses, I guess I'll just stick to this battery for a while, then. Charging it every 4-5 days is not really an issue, after all.

[KTamas]

Originally Posted by david8866

Another one here prefers K1 over other generations (except DX).

The K1 battery life gets very very bad when the wireless is on (much much worse comparing K2 and K3, just if you wonder.) 2500 pages sound good, the battery is in good condition. I don't know about aftermarket battery; 6 months ago, I bought 2 new original Amazon batteries, they don't hold power well - I read somewhere, batteries once charged, they need to be charge once a while; if not, their life will be shorten. You can ask aftermarket battery sellers, they might know the manufacture date on those battery; some can even roll a new one for you.

Man, if only the DX wouldn't be so damn expensive, I'd get one of that, too; it was a niche and a failed one of that, but nevertheless I always admired it.

[susan_cassidy]

I have a K1, and bought a K3 for backup, just in case the K1 dies, but so far, I prefer the K1. I like the scroll wheel - you can just move the scroll wheel up and down a bit if you think the screen is close to timing out and going to sleep, and the Content Manager is easy to transfer multiple books at one time. It is slightly larger than the K3, but not by that much. I don't really notice that much difference in the screens - not at all, to be honest. Maybe I got an extra-good K1? But my husband's looks the same to me. He's still on his first battery, after 4 years.

ETA: I also like the page turn buttons better on the K1. It seems to me harder to use the ones on the K3.