That bad news: When I turned on my Kindle on Sunday to continue reading “I Drink for a Reason“, well, it didn’t turn on. Not at all. It was fully charged. Screen, rather than displaying the screen saver normally seen when it is off, was black with some barely visible “burned in” lines of text from the book.

Not good.

A few minutes of online chat with a Kindle specialist at Amazon.com revealed that yes, it was just fried. Dead.

As longtime readers will know, I love my Kindle. I think the Kindle is a fantastic device for reading. I don’t want it to be a “tablet”. I like it as an e-reader. Easy on the eyes, enlargeable font, just a fantastic reading experience. I love it.

Not sure what fried this one. We have had power issues due to an ice storm. Perhaps a surge got it? Who knows.

The good news: When I bought this Kindle Touch 3G at Best Buy, I broke one of my normal rules and I payed for 2 years of their extended super warranty. It is 1.5 years old. Warranty still good. Took it to Best Buy. They gave me store credit for the full purchase price, and bumped it up by enough to buy the Kindle Paperwhite 3G — which replaced the one I have. So that’s cool.

What’s not cool is that they are out of the Paperwhite 3G.  But what is cool again is that soon a better but pretty much the same price Paperwhite 3G will be available.

So I will wait for the new and improved one.

I was very happy with Best Buy. They did exactly what they needed to do. No bullshit. Good job.