I've recently been looking into rollerball pens that take fountain pen cartridges, or are compatible/refillable by user with fountain pen ink. What I initially wanted was to figure out how to refill Pilot V5 needle-point rollerballs. I've had good experiences with those pens but the problem was that they would eventually run out of ink and are a disposable. Those particular pens sell at a premium price compared to other rollerballs from other brands or product lines, such as the uniball rollerball pens. As a student I would go through a good amount of pens a year, and since I've started using fountain pens, I'm trying to slowly wean myself away from them.
Fountain pens give me that great smooth inky feel and great fun when writing with a fountain pen nib. A big problem though is that when I write quickly, rollerballs are more practical. I have not yet acclimated to the point of where my fountain pen keeps up with my fastest cursive when it comes time for writing on tests or in-class responses. For this I refer to a trusty old rollerball (currently one from Uniball, because I have a pack from a sale awhile back.)
I have one of the Noodler's rollerball tips installed in a preppy that came free with one of their 4.5 bottles of ink, but I find that that one, while it lays down a wonderful wet line with Heart of Darkness, it dislikes drier inks, such as Noodler's Black (Original? Bulletproof? I don't know). Armed with the knowledge that many others and even Nathan Tardiff himself have commented on the wear of the rollerball nibs from Noodler's, I started looking into cartridge taking rollerball pens that don't have replaceable nibs. One must assume that if the tip is not replaceable, then it must be built for work and wear.
The ones that I came across in the order I found them were the Noodler's rollerball, Kaweco rollerball, the J. Herbin rollerball, and the Yafa cartridge-rollerball. All of these are essentially what the rollerball tip in the preppy wants to be. The advantage the preppy has though as the ability to be an eyedropper pen, and thus have a beautifully large reservoir for ink. I had already ruled out Noodler's in my mind, because I already knew about their wear and tear nibs. The next three came down to availability, pricing, and looks.
Just received the J. Herbin rollerball in the mail. After looking around for information on this pen, I found that there was little to none, and the only page with information was a listing on the Writer's Bloc website that said that the pen was discontinued. Discontinued! Where do you find such things then? Of course- rummage sales, auction blocks, thrift shops, etc. I found my particular pen on Ebay from an estate items seller/digger.
The pen comes in a foam bed in a round tin, not even 5 inches in diameter. The collectable tin contains the pen, and some smaller tins of cartridges to fit it. I will edit this post later to include photos.
I have to admit that upon opening the tin, I was not impressed, I was disappointed even. The hazard of buying things on ebay is that you can only get so much information, and since there was only one of this particular item that I had been able to find anywhere, I settled. What I received, to my surprise was a black demonstrator pen. I had been lead to believe from the listing on the other site that all the pens came with a sliver body, with different colored caps. Other than the color though, the pen looked alike to the one on the listing, when I got myself to a computer and compared.
I suppose that my disappointment was mostly because I'm not exactly the biggest fan of demonstrators. Despite this being my first demonstrator fountain pen (with a rb tip, but it is essentially a fp), I've had click-pens, ball points, mechanical pencils, etc- that have been demonstrators. And they didn't really do anything for me. I prefer a sleek and beautiful look to my pens. (Even the eyedropper Preppys have a nice asthetic to them... when their ink barrels are mostly full, I don't get the same feeling when it's a Preppy with a cartridge.) While what I have currently can't be called the prettiest fp collection ever, they have nice designs and a great feel to them. The second thing I noticed (after the demonstrator part) was that the plastic was soft to the touch. However it IS hard plastic. This is pretty confusing. This is not soft plastic, such as the bodies of the Pilot Parallel pens, but it isn't hard and highly polished plastic like with the Platinum Preppy pens, and its also not like those plastic pens with the 'satin' feel. Perhaps I'm just imagining it. Perhaps not, but to me the plastic body feels different.
The pen is light in the hand, and fairly shot, about 5 inches capped and 6 inches posted. I need to write with it posted because I feel that it is too light without the cap. With the cartridge in, this pen is still lighter than a preppy pen with a cartridge in, but the body is also significantly thinner. The body is thicker than for instance, a BIC ball point. If I were to compare between the fps that I have, I would say the dimensions are closest with a Noodler's Flex pen (which has the same body as their Creeper), but a third to half a centimeter shorter capped, but almost 1.5 cm longer posted.
I believe the point would be equivalent to a US medium. So far it has written well and smoothly with the J. Herbin cartridge ink. Much better than the RB tip on the preppy, whether that is due to workmanship or due to the much finer point on the Noodler's tip, I can't really say. I have noticed though that the ball inside the tip from Noodler's is definitely metal, and the one from J. Herbin seems to be made of plastic. The tip being made of plastic makes me worry, because plastic wears down much more quickly than metal does. The real test for me is to see how well the pen will do when I refill these cartridges with other inks.
I will follow up with a more in-depth review another time on the writing performance once I've had the pen for awhile. (I've only had it with me for 1.5 hrs now! Yes, I was excited.) If there's anything that I've missed in terms of initial impression that anyone wants to know, tell me.
I had thought that since I got the J. Herbin, I probably shouldn't get the Kaweco, but seeing how its a demonstrator and all... I figure this will become my 'take- everywhere- pocket pen' and if I get a Kaweco it'll be in my pen pouch. I've seen and tested a Kaweco FP before, so I know what to expect in terms of body. I would definitely consider it more 'professional looking' and 'higher end' rollerball. I feel like I can get away with the J. Herbin masquerading as a regular pen most of the time. But that can be both good and bad. On one hand less people might want to swipe it, on the other hand, they might not feel quite as guilty swiping it, since it looks pretty cheap.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Relevation: Regarding Noodler's rollerball preppys
The very first bottle of ink I got was Noodler's Heart of Darkness. I was desperately trying NOT to be sucked into the world of fountain pens and had ordered a few cheap pens from Hero off of ebay and then got HoD off of Amazon. Long before I got the Hero pens, I received HoD in the mail. Now if I had gotten the Hero pens first, and that was my initiation into the world of fountain pens, then I probably would have not been likely to be sucked in, at least not as badly. Those pens were pretty bad, honestly. But along with the 4.5oz bottle of HoD came a Platinum Preppy converted into an eyedropper fill pen. I was hooked.
At that point I had only the one Preppy and some lackluster Hero's. But after my collection started to grow a bit I wanted to experiment with the rollerball tip that was included with the free Preppy. It was a joy to work with, but I still liked the fountain nib to the Preppy better, so I put the rollerball tip away and enjoyed the fountain pen.
Fast-forward. In a new bottle of some regular Noodler's Black ink comes another Preppy with rollerball tip. Wanting to save the new tip for later, I try using the old tip. Doesn't work. New tip? It barely works. What's going on? It took me awhile but eventually I dug out the original Preppy filled with HoD, and switched the rollerball onto that, and the fountain tip onto the one filled with Black. Yes! It works!
Why is it that the rollerball works so much better with HoD then regular Black? I truly don't know. Maybe it's because HoD is somewhat of a wet ink. Compared to regular Black, it practically gushes out of the Preppy on the fountain nib. I suppose that now I'm truly experiencing the fine nib on the Preppy with the drier Black ink. I'm not sure yet if I like it though.
Question is- why include the rollerball tip with the Preppys in regular Black if they aren't going to work? I recently gifted a bottle of Noodler's Black to one of my friends, and she experienced the same issues with her rollerball tip. I have a new bottle of Concord Grape that I haven't opened yet, but it came with a Preppy without the rollerball tip. What's going on?
This post has been long, and rambling- the point was that the rollerball tip works with Heart of Darkness and not with Black. If you've made it this far though the post- kudos. I've got HW to get back to.
At that point I had only the one Preppy and some lackluster Hero's. But after my collection started to grow a bit I wanted to experiment with the rollerball tip that was included with the free Preppy. It was a joy to work with, but I still liked the fountain nib to the Preppy better, so I put the rollerball tip away and enjoyed the fountain pen.
Fast-forward. In a new bottle of some regular Noodler's Black ink comes another Preppy with rollerball tip. Wanting to save the new tip for later, I try using the old tip. Doesn't work. New tip? It barely works. What's going on? It took me awhile but eventually I dug out the original Preppy filled with HoD, and switched the rollerball onto that, and the fountain tip onto the one filled with Black. Yes! It works!
Why is it that the rollerball works so much better with HoD then regular Black? I truly don't know. Maybe it's because HoD is somewhat of a wet ink. Compared to regular Black, it practically gushes out of the Preppy on the fountain nib. I suppose that now I'm truly experiencing the fine nib on the Preppy with the drier Black ink. I'm not sure yet if I like it though.
Question is- why include the rollerball tip with the Preppys in regular Black if they aren't going to work? I recently gifted a bottle of Noodler's Black to one of my friends, and she experienced the same issues with her rollerball tip. I have a new bottle of Concord Grape that I haven't opened yet, but it came with a Preppy without the rollerball tip. What's going on?
This post has been long, and rambling- the point was that the rollerball tip works with Heart of Darkness and not with Black. If you've made it this far though the post- kudos. I've got HW to get back to.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Little escapees
There are a lot of thing that I'm bad at. Unfortunately this includes a tendency to over-procrasinate and failing to update my blog as promised.
I promised awhile ago to post pictures of the little lovelies in the lab. Unfortunately I haven't had the change to grab any good pictures yet, but I do have some pictures of little wanna-be escapees from when we were harvesting the larvae from the paper bags (yes, breeding butterflies is soo high tech...) to transfer into wooden blocks. These blocks get misted with water and then stuck in the fridge where the larvae will experience 'winter' until spring time.
I believe these are Speyeria butterflies and larvae. The other species we're working on I haven't got pictures of yet, but we've got a batch of them in the second or third instar and hopefully they'll be big and happy enough to make pupla soon. We've got the heat lamps going on full force still on timers so they think that it's high summer.
Here's one escapee that made it particularly far, he was climbing up the side of the plastic box we use to keep it all contained while we're working.
These little guys climbed out of their hole and were try to run away! Don't they know they're more protected inside? I guess not.
You can see then climbing up on the sides. This block is a little too full, we ended up transferring some into another block.
Click to zoom!
Label the blocks with information, so we know who came from which Mama Butterfly later. After a female lays her eggs, she dies, and we take her body and preserve it and sequence the DNA, so we know what these guys are supposed to look like.
Some of the little lovelies in their cloth mesh cage. At this point they're getting pretty beat up by having to stay in the cage and beating on each other. Also because of handling when we have to hand-feed, them. But the Prof just got the cyanide in, so he has started to mate some of the butterflies.
I promised awhile ago to post pictures of the little lovelies in the lab. Unfortunately I haven't had the change to grab any good pictures yet, but I do have some pictures of little wanna-be escapees from when we were harvesting the larvae from the paper bags (yes, breeding butterflies is soo high tech...) to transfer into wooden blocks. These blocks get misted with water and then stuck in the fridge where the larvae will experience 'winter' until spring time.
I believe these are Speyeria butterflies and larvae. The other species we're working on I haven't got pictures of yet, but we've got a batch of them in the second or third instar and hopefully they'll be big and happy enough to make pupla soon. We've got the heat lamps going on full force still on timers so they think that it's high summer.
Here's one escapee that made it particularly far, he was climbing up the side of the plastic box we use to keep it all contained while we're working.
These little guys climbed out of their hole and were try to run away! Don't they know they're more protected inside? I guess not.
You can see then climbing up on the sides. This block is a little too full, we ended up transferring some into another block.
Click to zoom!
Label the blocks with information, so we know who came from which Mama Butterfly later. After a female lays her eggs, she dies, and we take her body and preserve it and sequence the DNA, so we know what these guys are supposed to look like.
Some of the little lovelies in their cloth mesh cage. At this point they're getting pretty beat up by having to stay in the cage and beating on each other. Also because of handling when we have to hand-feed, them. But the Prof just got the cyanide in, so he has started to mate some of the butterflies.
We're on the last few bags of eggs now, the ones from the butterflies we collected on Labor day should be hatching sometime soon, so all the heavy genetics and DNA work starts this week. Joy.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
"New" Amazon Kindle VS Old Amazon Kindle
Admittedly the title of this post is misleading, as technically this should be the same Amazon Kindle. But I've noticed a few differences between my original Kindle 3, and the one that Amazon sent me to replace my Kindle, I thought I would document them.
My original Kindle 3 was a pre-order. Or at least almost a pre-order? I don't actually recall. I remember that my first two week's paycheck from working at The Grove last year went into my Kindle, I ordered it sometime in September/early October (2010) (which I believe is when they started shipping the pre-orders out (there was apparently not enough units to fulfill the pre-order, if I recall correctly)) and it had just arrived when I got home for Thanksgiving (I had it shipped home, instead of to college). The order for the new Kindle was put in on Wednesday (August 31, 2011) by my customer service representative after he figured out that my Kindle was malfunctioning (more on this later).
Aesthetically the two side by side look almost identical. The replacement is a refurbished model, but I'm more or less simply happy that it WORKS. I would have been perfectly happy, even happier, if they had been able to fix my old unit (I was actually hoping that some sort of software patch would fix the problem). The concept of refurbished in general, I know shouldn't make me unhappy/more nervous, but I don't think I can help that, especially because it looks simply inferior to my old unit. It looks new, aside from the obvious differences that I've noted below, which I've made in having the new device side by side with the old one for four hours. If there are more changes that I notice I will update accordingly. It's clean and it even doesn't have the crack in the bezel that my original did (which I've noticed that from browsing around Kindle forums that this actually is a fault with the Kindle manufacturing/design.)
The problem with the old unit was that to put it simply, it was SLOW, and then it FROZE and RESTARTED ALL THE TIME. It was simply quite aggravating. The slowness I could deal with, it had been building up for months and months. I had thought though that it was a side effect of just loading LOTS and LOTS of books on the device. When you fill up the hard disk on your computer it slows down, right? I figured that something similar was going on. At this point in time though, when I need to turn the page in a book, I'm more likely to have to press the button, go away, maybe leave to use the restroom or something, come back, and either it'll still not have turned the page, or it has (sometimes it takes ten minutes to turn one page, I was ready to go back to paper books, I was reading more on my laptop Kindle application then the device itself, and sat there and timed it once), or for some reason, THE UNIT HAS FROZEN OR RESTARTED ITSELF. Now if it's frozen, I can do a hard restart by holding the power slider to the side for twenty seconds, that's generally what is recommended by the Customer Service (and is in fact what they asked me to do, first thing after acknowledging that I believed I had a problem). But there is NO REASON why a device needs to restart itself five times in one day, unless I tell it to. (By five times, I'm probably fed up with it and I'll give up for the day.) This never happened when I first got the unit. Even with three classes' semester's worth of powerpoints in PDF form, plus a summer session. And those PDFs can take up a lots of space. Towards the end of June is when this problem started presenting itself I suppose. After the first summer session, I removed all of my class PDFs from my Kindle. THIS is my original and primary purpose for my Kindle: To be able to take along my class material in a small and wonderfully light and easy to read device. After I started to do this last fall, I rarely ever had to print powerpoint slides, electronic text based materials, etc. I didn't even have to take my laptop to class with me anymore, and have it take up the entire desk in the lecture hall. Those desks are small but the little Kindle and a notebook fit on it well. My laptop is no monster, with only a 13" screen, but I need to write in my notebooks ON TOP of the keyboard, in a cramped desk/chair combo. After I discovered how to make fanfiction mobi files, I hardly ever had to use my laptop anymore except to access the internet to do research, do homework, or to look at blogs. With this in mind, I had to stop my lagging to call CS because a device with all these problems wasn't going to work with the school year starting. Even with primarily philosophy classes this year instead of primarily science classes in prior years, the Kindle would be a big part of my academics. I even had to order a CISS for my printer in anticipation of the amount of text materials I knew I would have to print.
It was quite funny actually when the CS agent realized that he would have to replace my Kindle, and I suppose that was primarily because I could hear him swearing in the background. It was obvious that he had said it away from the phone or had attempted to muffle it with something, but I could hear it.
But all this stuff is not what this post was supposed to be about, so let's get down to nitty gritty.
The devices look the same more or less when you initially look at them. The first difference I noticed is that the buttons on the type pad are different. In the old unit, it is clear that Amazon attempted to make the buttons also matte to reduce as much glare as possible on the device. The product was that the buttons, while matte, also had a slightly grainy texture to the touch, which I suppose was helpful in giving a tactile feel to the buttons as well as stopping the sliding sensation on buttons that are shiny and very small. If you've ever worked with very small shiny buttons on devices before, you might understand what I mean, I noticed this primarily on my old Blackberry. The buttons on the new unit are shiny, although this is not obviously to the eye, I noticed the difference in feel first, and then noticed the visual difference. Personally I like the old version, because it provides a slight grip on the letter keys when you use them. There were numerous reports though that the Kindle 3's key labels had a tendency to wear off after an extended period of use. This never happened to me, but I believe that that is mostly because I don't play that many games on my Kindle, and I had kept the original plastic cover that came with the device on the front until about February. Looking at them closely now, I do detect some wear on the labels. Printed labels on the shiny type keys on the new unit might prove to be less prone to wear off. This would be an interested experiment to do, but not one that I would do personally. Which do I prefer? I have gotten used to the feel of the old unit's buttons, and the slick feeling of the shiny buttons is not something that I welcome, but if that will increase the longevity of the labels, I honestly can say that I don't know which I would toss up. The shininess though, I definitely don't like.
Part of Amazon's claim is that the back of the Kindle has a tactile feeling back, so it is less prone to slip out of your grip due to dry or slippery hands. The backing to the new Kindle unit is smoother in grain then the one on the old unit. Perhaps smoother in grain is the wrong description, but it is smoother feeling to the fingers. The old unit has a lovely almost velvet type feel to the supple plastic covering the back of the Kindle. The new unit has a smoother feel, and less of the velvet feel. The plastic does not seem to be as soft, or tactile. Will this be easier to slip from the hands? I don't know. As I keep my Kindle in a leather case (secured by elastic ties) most of the time, the back is something that I rarely touch on my old Kindle unit, and that will probably continue to be the case with the new one. (You forget how small the Kindle actually is after you've had it in a case for awhile, my particular case increases the thickness by about three times the thickness of the device on its own.) I do feel that this is not what Amazon promised to it's customers though. The tactile feel of the back of the device is significantly decreased, and while enough for a good amount of tactile feel, I like the old version better.
The power slider on the new device is sticky/stiff. This problem might go away with use, but for now, it feel like the slider is just more cheaply manufactured. The whole new unit seems more cheaply manufactured from my original unit. I might be wrong, but there's what I think.
Aside from the look and feel of the device, the real question is that how does it perform? I can say that after copying the documents folder from the old device to the new one, and so it has the same amount of space taken up, the new one still performs better. The page turns are a little slower than a brand new, mostly empty device, but it is still actually turning the device at least close to a slow page turn.
As much as I feel that I like the old unit better, I have to admit, I like the new one more because it works. And in the end, that's what really matters, the device needs to perform, or it's not worth it.
Another question though, is that does my manufacturer's warranty now expire from the purchase date of the original unit, or the 'purchase' date of the new unit, as I did receive a purchase confirmation, and what exactly is the warranty information on a refurb unit?
OK- Time for bed now, driving home for labor day weekend tomorrow morning.
My original Kindle 3 was a pre-order. Or at least almost a pre-order? I don't actually recall. I remember that my first two week's paycheck from working at The Grove last year went into my Kindle, I ordered it sometime in September/early October (2010) (which I believe is when they started shipping the pre-orders out (there was apparently not enough units to fulfill the pre-order, if I recall correctly)) and it had just arrived when I got home for Thanksgiving (I had it shipped home, instead of to college). The order for the new Kindle was put in on Wednesday (August 31, 2011) by my customer service representative after he figured out that my Kindle was malfunctioning (more on this later).
Aesthetically the two side by side look almost identical. The replacement is a refurbished model, but I'm more or less simply happy that it WORKS. I would have been perfectly happy, even happier, if they had been able to fix my old unit (I was actually hoping that some sort of software patch would fix the problem). The concept of refurbished in general, I know shouldn't make me unhappy/more nervous, but I don't think I can help that, especially because it looks simply inferior to my old unit. It looks new, aside from the obvious differences that I've noted below, which I've made in having the new device side by side with the old one for four hours. If there are more changes that I notice I will update accordingly. It's clean and it even doesn't have the crack in the bezel that my original did (which I've noticed that from browsing around Kindle forums that this actually is a fault with the Kindle manufacturing/design.)
The problem with the old unit was that to put it simply, it was SLOW, and then it FROZE and RESTARTED ALL THE TIME. It was simply quite aggravating. The slowness I could deal with, it had been building up for months and months. I had thought though that it was a side effect of just loading LOTS and LOTS of books on the device. When you fill up the hard disk on your computer it slows down, right? I figured that something similar was going on. At this point in time though, when I need to turn the page in a book, I'm more likely to have to press the button, go away, maybe leave to use the restroom or something, come back, and either it'll still not have turned the page, or it has (sometimes it takes ten minutes to turn one page, I was ready to go back to paper books, I was reading more on my laptop Kindle application then the device itself, and sat there and timed it once), or for some reason, THE UNIT HAS FROZEN OR RESTARTED ITSELF. Now if it's frozen, I can do a hard restart by holding the power slider to the side for twenty seconds, that's generally what is recommended by the Customer Service (and is in fact what they asked me to do, first thing after acknowledging that I believed I had a problem). But there is NO REASON why a device needs to restart itself five times in one day, unless I tell it to. (By five times, I'm probably fed up with it and I'll give up for the day.) This never happened when I first got the unit. Even with three classes' semester's worth of powerpoints in PDF form, plus a summer session. And those PDFs can take up a lots of space. Towards the end of June is when this problem started presenting itself I suppose. After the first summer session, I removed all of my class PDFs from my Kindle. THIS is my original and primary purpose for my Kindle: To be able to take along my class material in a small and wonderfully light and easy to read device. After I started to do this last fall, I rarely ever had to print powerpoint slides, electronic text based materials, etc. I didn't even have to take my laptop to class with me anymore, and have it take up the entire desk in the lecture hall. Those desks are small but the little Kindle and a notebook fit on it well. My laptop is no monster, with only a 13" screen, but I need to write in my notebooks ON TOP of the keyboard, in a cramped desk/chair combo. After I discovered how to make fanfiction mobi files, I hardly ever had to use my laptop anymore except to access the internet to do research, do homework, or to look at blogs. With this in mind, I had to stop my lagging to call CS because a device with all these problems wasn't going to work with the school year starting. Even with primarily philosophy classes this year instead of primarily science classes in prior years, the Kindle would be a big part of my academics. I even had to order a CISS for my printer in anticipation of the amount of text materials I knew I would have to print.
It was quite funny actually when the CS agent realized that he would have to replace my Kindle, and I suppose that was primarily because I could hear him swearing in the background. It was obvious that he had said it away from the phone or had attempted to muffle it with something, but I could hear it.
But all this stuff is not what this post was supposed to be about, so let's get down to nitty gritty.
The devices look the same more or less when you initially look at them. The first difference I noticed is that the buttons on the type pad are different. In the old unit, it is clear that Amazon attempted to make the buttons also matte to reduce as much glare as possible on the device. The product was that the buttons, while matte, also had a slightly grainy texture to the touch, which I suppose was helpful in giving a tactile feel to the buttons as well as stopping the sliding sensation on buttons that are shiny and very small. If you've ever worked with very small shiny buttons on devices before, you might understand what I mean, I noticed this primarily on my old Blackberry. The buttons on the new unit are shiny, although this is not obviously to the eye, I noticed the difference in feel first, and then noticed the visual difference. Personally I like the old version, because it provides a slight grip on the letter keys when you use them. There were numerous reports though that the Kindle 3's key labels had a tendency to wear off after an extended period of use. This never happened to me, but I believe that that is mostly because I don't play that many games on my Kindle, and I had kept the original plastic cover that came with the device on the front until about February. Looking at them closely now, I do detect some wear on the labels. Printed labels on the shiny type keys on the new unit might prove to be less prone to wear off. This would be an interested experiment to do, but not one that I would do personally. Which do I prefer? I have gotten used to the feel of the old unit's buttons, and the slick feeling of the shiny buttons is not something that I welcome, but if that will increase the longevity of the labels, I honestly can say that I don't know which I would toss up. The shininess though, I definitely don't like.
Part of Amazon's claim is that the back of the Kindle has a tactile feeling back, so it is less prone to slip out of your grip due to dry or slippery hands. The backing to the new Kindle unit is smoother in grain then the one on the old unit. Perhaps smoother in grain is the wrong description, but it is smoother feeling to the fingers. The old unit has a lovely almost velvet type feel to the supple plastic covering the back of the Kindle. The new unit has a smoother feel, and less of the velvet feel. The plastic does not seem to be as soft, or tactile. Will this be easier to slip from the hands? I don't know. As I keep my Kindle in a leather case (secured by elastic ties) most of the time, the back is something that I rarely touch on my old Kindle unit, and that will probably continue to be the case with the new one. (You forget how small the Kindle actually is after you've had it in a case for awhile, my particular case increases the thickness by about three times the thickness of the device on its own.) I do feel that this is not what Amazon promised to it's customers though. The tactile feel of the back of the device is significantly decreased, and while enough for a good amount of tactile feel, I like the old version better.
The power slider on the new device is sticky/stiff. This problem might go away with use, but for now, it feel like the slider is just more cheaply manufactured. The whole new unit seems more cheaply manufactured from my original unit. I might be wrong, but there's what I think.
Aside from the look and feel of the device, the real question is that how does it perform? I can say that after copying the documents folder from the old device to the new one, and so it has the same amount of space taken up, the new one still performs better. The page turns are a little slower than a brand new, mostly empty device, but it is still actually turning the device at least close to a slow page turn.
As much as I feel that I like the old unit better, I have to admit, I like the new one more because it works. And in the end, that's what really matters, the device needs to perform, or it's not worth it.
Another question though, is that does my manufacturer's warranty now expire from the purchase date of the original unit, or the 'purchase' date of the new unit, as I did receive a purchase confirmation, and what exactly is the warranty information on a refurb unit?
OK- Time for bed now, driving home for labor day weekend tomorrow morning.
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