I ordered this Kindle 1 in November, 2007, the first day Amazon released it, and it’s still going strong. I still remember doing ordering it because I was a huge ereader at the time and following the news of it. I was at work, and I was late to a staff meeting, because I wanted to buy it that morning. Good thing too, cuz they were sold out a few hours later.
Interesting tidbit: This Kindle 1 series is the only E Ink Kindle version ever made with expandable card storage. Standard SD card slot in the back under panel.
I recently had to replace the battery, but I can’t complain because the original lasted nearly 19 years!! The screen is still sharp, the page turns are quick, and everything works about as well as it did when it was new.
When it came out, it was before ebooks were well-known. So believe it or not, it caused quite a stir. So much excitement AND shit talking.
Most were saying, “I prefer paper books, no one will buy these!” lol
Also, amazon sells more ebooks than paper books now.
When I took it to work, everyone was asking to look at it. There weren’t ebook nerds, so they had never heard or seen e-ink before. I had a Sony Reader (still have that one too!), but I’d never taken it to work. Fun times.
And man, lots of people called this original Kindle design ugly, but I’ve always liked the design. With all the angled buttons, odd shapes, and chunky plastic.
It’s not my main reader anymore since it has no built-in light, but I still read on it. I use Calibre to convert my DRM-free books and short stories to MOBI, then transfer them over directly.
Every once in a while, I pull it off the shelf and will read an entire book or story on it just for fun. Like I’m doing today.
The plastic is doing what plastic does, so it’s not as white as it used to be. The entire case is getting a little more faded over time, but I don’t know how to stop that from happening yet.
EDIT: So I am still looking for how to clean the plastic to make it brighter I did just find wipes on amazon that are supposed to help, so I’ll update if it works!
I believe that was the year that many started to question. Jeffrey Bezos went from around 3 billion dollars net worth to nearly 9 billion in '07.
The e-readers, to my recollection, were still seen as novel, with The Nook and Barnes & Noble seeming like the obvious powerhouse.
I seem to recall Bill Gates being seen as the evil billionaire that siphoned everyone’s ire, while the other fledgling tech bros largely flew under the radar.
So funny story. Long ago, I dated someone who was in Bezo’s circle in those early days, long before they talked about ebooks or anything. They were still just a bookseller. Just books and only books.
She worked close enough that she’d be in tiny 10-people meetings with him.
She came home told me that Amazon was thinking about moving from books to non-book stuff too, like clothes and computers and stuff, I laughed. My reply was something along the lines of, “They sell books. He should keep doing that. It’s not like he’s fucking walmart. Dumbest idea ever. Why would they ever sell anything but books?”
I used Amazon all the time to buy books, so I couldn’t wrap my head around them being an online walmart thing.
Now? Almost my entire house is furnished by Amazon stuff and I usually look there first before I buy anything. I can hardly even grasp that I used to only use Amazon for books. LMAO
I’m smarter now than I was then. Kinda.