[MiguelATF]

Reality check time. My 7th Kindle just FAILED.

The first 3 failures were previous generation Kindles with Keyboards.

The next two failures were the smaller Kindles but not the 'touch' model - rather, the ones with a rudimentary joystick/clicker at the bottom of the page.

Amazon actually replaced every one of them which was cool; the fact that they all failed (totally frozen screen, with no possibility of reset or total hard reboot) was definitely not cool.

Failure #6 was an earlier generation Kindle touch - basically the same as the Paperwhite but without any internal light/lighting.

When it failed, for some reason, Amazon refused to replace it (it may have been slightly out of warranty), but offered me a discount if I traded it in on a Paperwhite. For cost reasons (perhaps not the best idea), I decided to get a "Certified" Refurbished Paperwhite (supposedly as good as new, according to the friendly Amazon salesperson). That was in December 2013, slightly more than 1 year ago. Now, roughly 13 months later, the Paperwhite has FAILED.

Let me be specific - the failure involves a partially frozen screen with screen degradation. No amount of resetting - total or otherwise - or 'hard' reboots - alters this.

To be honest, I've enjoyed this Paperwhite the most of any of my kindles. But having them fail every year is getting to be a serious downer/drag/bummer/etc.

So - I'm considering getting a Kobo - specifically either an Aura HD or an Aura H2O (though I don't really need the waterproofing, but it's not much more expensive than the plain Aura).

My hesitation is that from what I can tell, Kobo's book prices seem 25 to 50 % higher than Amazon's. Second hesitation is that Kobo doesn't offer many magazine subscriptions (which are not necessary but a fun 'plus' for the kindle). Hesitation #3 has to do with the fact that after downloading Calibre and some supposedly foolproof and latest-gen DRM-strippers aka De-DRM'ers - which allow Calibre to automatically convert my Kindle (azw) format books to a more Kobo-friendly format (MOBI or EPUB), I've discovered (surprise, surprised) that the De-DRM/Calibre/Conversion process only seems to work on approx 50 % of my kindle books - and since many of them are reference books (I'm a writer by trade), it would suck to have to buy replacement versions from Kobo simply because the Amazon versions were unconvertible.

But the final and real hesitation is -

I know nothing about Kobo QC (Quality Control) or reliability.

However I do know that having 7 Kindles fail in a row, in rougly 7 years, really sucks.

But on the other hand I can't help wondering - does the newest generation Paperwhite - or the even more expensive Voyage - have a better reliability (lower failure rate) than other Kindles? Or will they be the same shoddy - and ultimately, in my case at least, unreliable quality - of my previous Kindles?

I would love some serious semi-unbiased opinions on this. I say semi-unbiased because the truth is that we are all subjective and have our own quirks and individual biases, even if we don't admit them.

So what do you all think? I'm most concerned with Reliability/Fail issues - but would love some opinons. And, yes, I release some oher posts have already explored aspects of this conundrum (Papewhite or Voyage or Kobo Aura or H2O) - but none of them addressed the perspective and concerns of a person who's had SEVEN Kindle failures in a row. (I wish someone in the top ranks of Amazon would read this post and get back to me....but I don't supposed that's likely.)

Well........? What should I do???????????