Amazon.com Widgets
17th June 2008

Kindle Owners Experiencing Broken Screen Issues

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Recently some Kindle owners have been reporting issues with frozen and broken screens. This unlucky owner experienced a broken screen after only two days. Other Kindle owners have been reporting similar issues. Luckily, a few commenters have said that Amazon resolved their screen issues by replacing their Kindle within two weeks. (I don’t think I could voluntarily go two weeks without my Kindle now that I own one, but I think it’s a reasonable amount of time to wait for a replacement item that’s in such high demand.)

I’ve been experiencing a touch of this issue and have narrowed down exactly when it happens, at least in my experience. When I put the Kindle to sleep (by pressing ALT + the text key), I always wake it up (by pressing ALT + the text key again) before turning it off. The few times my Kindle has frozen with the screen looking as it does on this site is when I turn it off before waking it up. The next time I turn it on, the screen goes funny like that and I have to turn it off and turn it back on to get it to work properly.

Luckily, mine has never frozen to the point of needing repair. If yours does, however, try turning it off and turning it back on as I do. If that doesn’t work, one commenter says there’s a reset button under the rubber cover that you can press with an opened paperclip. If all else fails, contact Amazon Customer Service and they should be able to replace your Kindle within two weeks.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 12:15 pm and is tagged as . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 7 responses to “Kindle Owners Experiencing Broken Screen Issues”

  1. 1 On August 12th, 2008, Ethan Stanislawski said:

    This happened to me, but I received the Kindle as a gift. Now they’re making me go through the gift giver to get it replaced. Not the most helpful customer service.

  2. 2 On August 13th, 2008, CJ said:

    That’s a real shame that you have to alert the gift-giver of problems in order to get your Kindle replaced. Did they say why they are unable to assist you without the gift-giver? I would think if your Amazon account is linked to the Kindle that they should be able to work with you.

  3. 3 On August 13th, 2008, Ethan Stanislawski said:

    The next day I received an email saying that I had been given false information about the gift giving process. So they’re doing it through my account now. It was right as Kindle customer service was closing, so the guy I spoke to may just have wanted to get me off the phone.

  4. 4 On August 14th, 2008, Suzi said:

    About a week ago my Kindle (which i’ve had since January) started having weird streaky lines going across the top and left side. It didn’t really bug me at first, but then more started showing up each day. I called Amazon 2 days ago and explained my problem and they said they would send me a new one. All I have to do is put all my old stuff in the box the new one comes in, apply the pre-paid postage label they are giving me and send it back. Then of course I have to register the new one to my account and have it download all my books.

    I’m very grateful that they were willing to send me a new one, and even more so that I made that call already:

    Today I had to turn it off for a few hours and when I turned it back on the streaks had turned into smudges; The one on the top is about the width of a thumbprint, going across the whole screen. If I up the font size I can keep reading, so that’s what I’m going to do, and also not turn it off.

    Hopefully my new one will get here soon.

  5. 5 On September 30th, 2008, ATX84 said:

    The bottom half of my Kindle screen went ‘dark’ with a strange thumbprint-like black spot in the lower left corner. I thought to myself “Oh snap! I just lost $400!” After the initial panic I logged into my Amazon account, went to the Kindle section and hit the “Contact Us” button. I requested a call-back and less than 15 seconds later I was talking to an Amazon Digital Services representative.

    I explained what was happening with my Kindle and the representative initiated a replacement order for my Kindle. I just received the label to send the faulty Kindle back via email and the representative said I should expect my replacement Kindle to arrive tomorrow! I will post a follow-up with how everything shapes up.

  6. 6 On October 13th, 2008, kf said:

    I am now awaiting overnight delivery of my FOURTH Kindle in less than 6 months. All three predecessors have had screen blowups of such a severe degree as to render them entirely useless. Nothing traumatic has happened to any of them prior to the failures — e.g., no dropping or submersion in water. The only thing unusual about my life is that I fly a lot (>= 2 flights per week). I am curious if others who’ve had screen problems are also frequent fliers. I find it hard to believe my high failure rate is just bad luck.

  7. 7 On October 13th, 2008, CJ said:

    @kf - I have seen at least one story of someone who had Kindle issues (black splotches on the screen) after putting their Kindle through the machine at airport security, but I can’t seem to find the link right now.

    Has anyone had any personal experience with this? Perhaps there is something in the e-ink reacting to the x-ray machine?

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