In case you missed it, Amazon recently announced that they’ll accept trade-ins of older Kindles. Visit this page to see how much yours might be worth. I’ve got a first-gen Kindle (yup, with the super-ugly design and keyboard) as well as two third-gen ones. I have no intention of sending any of them back. Not even the first-gen one with the weak battery.
Why? First of all, thanks very much to the glacial pace of change of the Kindle e-reading software, that first-gen device is every bit as useful as the latest one. Amazon never made functionality a compelling reason to upgrade; it’s just always been about a sleeker design or a slightly faster device. As a result, all of the Kindles I own make for great hand-me-downs. When my Fire and Touch arrive next month I plan to give my third-gen Kindle to my son (just don’t tell my daughters).
That leads to reason #2 I’m not taking part in the “great Kindle trade-in deal”: Account sharing. All 3 of the Kindles in the Wikert family are on the same Amazon account. That means we buy a book once and can share it with each other. Yes, you have to be careful with Whispersync when you do this, but my wife and I have been sharing books all year with no problems. When I pass some of these older Kindles to my kids I’ll keep them all on that same account so we can continue sharing books we only have to buy once.
Finally, the trade-in prices are awful. Seriously. $20 for the wifi Kindle I just bought earlier this year? No way. Again, even when the new generation ones hit next month I feel my current Kindle has way more value than $20. If Amazon really wants to make this program interesting though, they should consider giving all the trade-in Kindles to schools and other non-profits around the world. At least then we’d know the paltry trade-in credit we’re receiving was for a good cause.
reposted with permission from Kindleville blog
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Here’s another reason:
I can get more for my older Kindles on the used market. The prices Amazon are offering are ridiculous.
Sony have a simialr trade-in program and their prices are jut as bad.
I did send in two Kindles. They were both first generation Kindles, and were not being used by anyone in my family, because we have 2 K3′s and a K2, with a Kindle Fire and a Kindle Touch on the way. I didn’t want to give them away, because while I loved the K1 at the time, it really is ugly and clunky to use. I’d rather buy someone a new Kindle than give them a K1. (I disagree with you here, Joe; I really do find the K1 significantly less useful than the K3, because the user interfaces are so painfully slow and hard to use.)
Maybe I could get a better price for my K1 somewhere else, but this was the simplest way to convert it into what I really wanted: more books. I stick them in a box, I print out the mailing label, and my account gets credited. I don’t have to deposit a check, I don’t have to find a buyer, I don’t have to worry about getting scammed, and I don’t have to throw my K1 away.