Need advice about buying a new Kindle 8 in 2024

[quentincompson]

Hey, guys!

I was hoping you could help me out with the following.

I've found some store from China selling supposedly new, unused Kindle 8,
but i'm concerned about the state of the battery since the book was made way in 2016-2017 and it’s probably been lying around drained for a long time.

Am i correct in assuming that the battery is likely no longer usable? Or even if it's in working condition its capacity has reduced and it will hold the charge for less time than it's supposed to do?

Thank you!

[pdurrant]

The self-discharge rate of Lithium ion batteries (according to a quick google) varies between 0.5% and 3% per month. And it's lower if stored at low temperatures.
8 years = 96 months.

So if the discharge rate was at the lower end of the range, they could still be good.
A replacement battery seems to be about £20 in the UK.

The Kindle 8 is interesting, in that it's the only touch screen kindle that doesn't use a capacitative layer.

[quentincompson]

Thank you for such a detailed reply, i appreciate it! Just one follow-up question - am i correct in my understanding that new items are usually stored at around 40-50% charge? So in 90 months is must have probably already discharged?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by quentincompson

Thank you for such a detailed reply, i appreciate it! Just one follow-up question - am i correct in my understanding that new items are usually stored at around 40-50% charge? So in 90 months is must have probably already discharged?

If it's cheap enough, it's worth a go.

(Assuming you want those specific specs in a Kindle)

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by quentincompson

Thank you for such a detailed reply, i appreciate it! Just one follow-up question - am i correct in my understanding that new items are usually stored at around 40-50% charge? So in 90 months is must have probably already discharged?

No, 65% to 75%. Sometimes more.

The battery could be dead, or be quite good as the number of complete cycles is the most wear. After that it's time, temperature and quality (purity etc).

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

The Kindle 8 is interesting, in that it's the only touch screen kindle that doesn't use a capacitative layer.

That would make the contrast and brightness a little better compared to the same generation of eink with capacitive touch. Capacitive touch originally was two or three extra layers and the almost transparent tin pattern. Later eink has part of the capacitive touch integrated to the eink top layer, or to tha light pipe layer.

The light pipe layer for front lighting slightly reduces contrast due to increased reflections of ambient light, and slightly reduces sharpness as it has a micro texture to release the LED light fed in at the edge(s).

This is why a Pearl screen with no touch (or only IR touch) and no lighting can look almost as white as earlier front-lit Carta with a 3rd party touch layer. Though all Carta family have regal mode refresh, which is not on Pearl.

Kindle 8 is a Pearl screen, it has Bluetooh, but it's only really voice view. Pointless compared to TTS on a phone.

Pearl 800 × 600 px so as it's 6″ the screen density is 167 ppi. This kind of Kindle became the Basic series when the PW1 came out. The 4G flash is part used by the OS.

It would need to be very cheap. The 800 x 600 is better on a 5″ ereader (Sony PRS-350 or 2nd version of Kobo Mini). The PRS-350 is also IR touch, but with some buttons. Its battery is available and easily replaced (less than £20).

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Quoth

... the almost transparent tin pattern.

Tin is a shiny metal. ITO (indium tin oxide) is transparent.

[quentincompson]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

If it's cheap enough, it's worth a go.

(Assuming you want those specific specs in a Kindle)

It costs about 50 bucks right now.

[quentincompson]

Originally Posted by Quoth

No, 65% to 75%. Sometimes more.

The battery could be dead, or be quite good as the number of complete cycles is the most wear. After that it's time, temperature and quality (purity etc).

Thank you!

[quentincompson]

Originally Posted by Quoth

It would need to be very cheap. The 800 x 600 is better on a 5″ ereader (Sony PRS-350 or 2nd version of Kobo Mini). The PRS-350 is also IR touch, but with some buttons. Its battery is available and easily replaced (less than £20).

I can get a Kindle 8 for 50 bucks. I've also forgotten to mention that i already own two Sony's - Prs T2 and T3 and they work just fine (on T2, for instance, the battery holds up for two weeks of around 45 minutes of reading each day - been using it for 10 years; i got T3 about ten days ago and i don't really see much difference from T2...maybe the battery is a bit better, but all in all i seem to like it even less than the previous model - T3 keep using hyphens to divide words at the end of the lines, and it's somewhat frustrating - T2 never acted this way).

I'm kinda strapped for cash and don't really want to shell out much for an e reader, so i wanted to keep T2 for myself, sell the other one and buy this supposedly new Kindle 8 instead. Do you think it's a foolish plan and i should keep using the Sony if there's nothing wrong with it?

Thank you!

[pdurrant]

If you're in any way "strapped for cash", don't buy another ebook reader until you're unhappy with the old one, IMO.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by quentincompson

I'm kinda strapped for cash and don't really want to shell out much for an e reader, so i wanted to keep T2 for myself, sell the other one and buy this supposedly new Kindle 8 instead. Do you think it's a foolish plan and i should keep using the Sony if there's nothing wrong with it?

Personally I like the T3 a lot. And they're definitely rarer and more valuable than the Kindle 8 — so don't let it go cheap. I also own a Kindle 8 that's almost unused in (what I consider) a nice case. If you live in the U.S. you might want to send a private message.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

The Kindle 8 is interesting, in that it's the only touch screen kindle that doesn't use a capacitative layer.

There was also the Kindle Touch and the Kindle 7 (which was almost the same as the Kindle 8).

[quentincompson]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

If you're in any way "strapped for cash", don't buy another ebook reader until you're unhappy with the old one, IMO.

Your advice makes sense, yeah. Mostly, i'm a little concerned that my T2 is going to give up one of these days since it's seen a decade of heavy use, and that's why i started looking around for an affordable spare e-reader and recently bought a PRS T3 model (which turned out to be a bit of a bummer because of the hyphenation issue and the ink of the displayed itself being less saturated like that on T2)...

Anyway, what i probably meant to say was that right now i can afford to spend some money on an e-reader, but i'm kinda of a cheapskate and don't want spend more than 50-60 dollars (and i do realize that hoping to buy a good new reader with those expectations is probably unreasonable and unrealistic on my part)... so when i stumbled upon this new Kindle 8 i wondered if it may serve as good backup option for the T2 ...

Apologies if i'm not making much sense...

[quentincompson]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Personally I like the T3 a lot. And they're definitely rarer and more valuable than the Kindle 8 — so don't let it go cheap. I also own a Kindle 8 that's almost unused in (what I consider) a nice case. If you live in the U.S. you might want to send a private message.

Thank you, that would've been a great solution, but, unfortunately, i'm not in the States - i live in Russia (don't hold it against me).

I do like the T3, but the hyphenation problem is kind of a letdown, and it seems that the text on the screen is not as pronounced and saturated with black as on my T2 (which also doesn't have the issue of hyphenating words at the end of a line). So it seems that for me T2 is the better option of the two.


P.S. Incidentally, could you tell me if a Kindle 8 also has the same hyphenation issue (dividing some word at the end of lines) as the T3 model?