[serf]

My Kindle arrived about 11/27. Out of the box it rattled like a part was loose inside. After charging it & trying to start it the screen flashed white a couple of times & then nothing. Pushing reset many times finally got it going.

After a couple days of having to reset due to lockups every 5-15 minutes, I emailed Amazon Support on 11/29 asking for exchange. On 11/30 I got an email saying they would replace it with estimated delivery 1/2/08-1/16/08 & I could use it in the meantime, as I requested.

Lockups got even more frequent. I ended up drilling a hole in the back cover so I did not have to remove it to stick a paperclip in the reset button.

I called Kindle Support & explained situation to someone, who seemed very helpful. My input was that I think having to wait over 1 month for a functioning unit is disappointing, particularly if Amazon is continuing to sell or deliver to others in the meantime. I asked if my experience was typical; if so, I wanted a return, not an exchange. Support said my experience was not typical. It seemed that Support said that they had set some units aside for replacement, but did not have enough, but that they would try to deliver a replacement sooner than originally estimated.

While I had intended to use the unit until I received the replacement, I returned it yesterday as it became too frustrating to continually reset it.

It is surprising that Amazon/Kindle is unable to timely replace defective units. I wonder if the failure rate is higher than they expected or if they got greedy and initially shipped more than they should, knowing they would frustrate a certain percentage of buyers by delivering failed units & by inability to timely deliver replacements.

Despite the defects in my unit, the experiences of being able to almost instantly receive purchased books (& the trial NYT subscription I had just started) & reading on the Kindle were great - even better than I had expected & I miss it now.

I am posting this to see if others have had similar experiences.