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Customer Review
A few blips but so far so good! EDITED 2 months on - The product itself & Kindle Unlimited explained
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 May 2022
NEW REVIEW June 2022
I wrote a review about this item soon after I purchased it in March 22 but I have been totally confused over Kindle Unlimited , Prime Reading & the Audible site - until yesterday - when I figured it all out - FINALLY!!
I've seen so man questions and blogs on the subject - none of which really helped me understand it so I felt it only fair to share what I've learned - Ill get on to that later.
THE PRODUCT ITSELF;
I have got back into reading again but I also regularly listen to my radio whilst falling asleep so I decided to upgrade my old Kindle Paperwhite bought in 2014 to the Paperwhite 2021 11th Generation with Audible.
I gave it 4 stars as initially there were a few issues with the screen freeing, it was also restarting itself and being a bit unresponsive. These issues have now cleared up and I put it down to me playing with it and loading it up. Two months on of regular use I only occasionally experience a blank screen, easily resolved by a re-start.
Battery life is pretty good but improves if you set it to Airplane Mode and if you don't downoad your audio versions of books until you need them.
Charging is very fast, much faster than my old version.
I was concerned this Kindle might be a bit big as I have small hands but I dont notice any difference unless I put my old version by the side of the new one.
Warm light setting is much better than the original stark light.
Instead of earphones I opted for a mini bluetooth speaker so I could listen at night. I got it from Amazon and it's listed as one of my reviews - the speaker is very compact, good battery life, charges fast and the sound quality is far better than I imagined it would be.
Adverts - I got the version with adverts, it seemed OK initially & then I found it intrusive when setting bookmarks whilst listening so I went into Manage your Device on the Amazon site, clicked on the Device, clicked on Special Offers and disabled the adverts for a £10 fee. Ads now only show in the Home screen underneath your books.
I got the version without Kindle Unlimited but upon starting the device up, the free trial was offered so I went for it - and I am now very pleased that I did - though up until yesterday, I was planning on cancelling it before the subsciription fee kicked in. Now that I understand it - I'll be sticking with it
COVERS:
I have gone for a different brand of cover - I've bought two - only because I fancied a change - these I have have reviewed and you can see in my review history.
On to the things I have now fully figured out.
PRIME READING
First of all, I will talk about Prime Reading. If you have Prime membership (where you get free deliveries and access to Prime Video & Music) you can borrow 10 eBooks and or eBooks with Audible at a time
Once you've finished a book or decided it's not for you you return it and can borrow another one.
If you cancel your Prime membership you will lose any books you have borrowed.
With Prime Reading there are a lot of books you can borrow but if, like me, you are quite picky about what you like to read / listen to you may find the choice to be quite limited.
AUDIBLE SITE
The Audible Site is part of Amazon but is a separate website.I
If you want to listen on your phone then download the App.
In the site you can browse and buy or borrow books plus it has podcasts there also. I haven't downloaded the app as I don't want Kindle on my phone.
KINDLE UNLIMITED - this is the good bit.
I am still on my free trial so I get one credit per month. One credit buys you any audiobook no matter what the price is.
When I first upgraded I picked out some of my existing eBooks which I wanted to use the Read & Listen feature with (Read & Listen allows you to switch from reading to listening or vice versa whilst keeping you in the same place in the book).
Some of my existing eBooks don't have an audio version, those that do have an audio version vary in price between around 99p to £7.99. With one credit I can buy the audiobook to go with my existing book.
Once the credit is used you then purchase other audio versions of your books. Soeme will have a reduced price, some won't.
If you want a new eBook with it's audio version, buy the eBook FIRST, then go back and buy the audio book - if you don't do it this way around you won't get a discount (if there is one available) for the audio version.
It's also worth pointing out that you can buy audio books only if you wish, plus some audiobooks are simply an audio without an eBook.
I f you were to go through your existing Kindle library and get the audio versions for each it would cost a fortune.
This is where I went searching. Unlimited says you can borrow loads of books for free & listen for free but I couldn't find where they were when browsing.
Compared to Prime Reading, Unlimited says it has loads of free books - loads more choice.
I found them yesterday!!!
In Amazon, click on Kindle Books under the product search box in the top middle of your screen.
Next, scroll down the page and to the left hand side is the menu.
Find ''Kindle Unlimited Eligible' and tick the box to the left of it. The screen will refresh.
Then in the menu to the left find 'Audible Narration' tick the box saying 'eBooks with Audible Narration'. The screen will refresh again.
These books all have the Read & Listen option and with Kindle Unlimited you can borrow up to ten books for free.
Make sure you have everything ticked- it's a bit of a pain but once you are there, there is a lot to choose from.
If you are also a Prime member you can actually borrow up to 20 books from this section.
I found a huge range of choice in here and have 20 borrowed. I can return them if I don't like them. The choices change but I've got a series of books of a crime thiller borrowed for free, This was a set read and reviewed by thousands with 4.5 to 5 star reviews I'm starting one of those today as there is another set I'm interested in which I could get all for free just now so if I don't like the crime set I'll replace them.
THEN, for the existing books I have on y Kindle I will wait for my next credit to be available and I can get the audio version using the credit.
I've filed my books into collections so that I know which ones I need to wait for credits to get the audio version for & I know which are borrowed with audio.
I've also set up a collection for those eBooks which have no audio and will be read only books.
I admit, I don't 'have' to go for particular authors nor the most recently published books - for me, I go for genres and customer reviews. I am picky but not that picky.
So therefore, now I understand all that, the Kindle itself is even better than I originally thought it was.
I hope this may have helped someone else who also got as confused as I did!
Or maybe, it's just me! Lol!
I wrote a review about this item soon after I purchased it in March 22 but I have been totally confused over Kindle Unlimited , Prime Reading & the Audible site - until yesterday - when I figured it all out - FINALLY!!
I've seen so man questions and blogs on the subject - none of which really helped me understand it so I felt it only fair to share what I've learned - Ill get on to that later.
THE PRODUCT ITSELF;
I have got back into reading again but I also regularly listen to my radio whilst falling asleep so I decided to upgrade my old Kindle Paperwhite bought in 2014 to the Paperwhite 2021 11th Generation with Audible.
I gave it 4 stars as initially there were a few issues with the screen freeing, it was also restarting itself and being a bit unresponsive. These issues have now cleared up and I put it down to me playing with it and loading it up. Two months on of regular use I only occasionally experience a blank screen, easily resolved by a re-start.
Battery life is pretty good but improves if you set it to Airplane Mode and if you don't downoad your audio versions of books until you need them.
Charging is very fast, much faster than my old version.
I was concerned this Kindle might be a bit big as I have small hands but I dont notice any difference unless I put my old version by the side of the new one.
Warm light setting is much better than the original stark light.
Instead of earphones I opted for a mini bluetooth speaker so I could listen at night. I got it from Amazon and it's listed as one of my reviews - the speaker is very compact, good battery life, charges fast and the sound quality is far better than I imagined it would be.
Adverts - I got the version with adverts, it seemed OK initially & then I found it intrusive when setting bookmarks whilst listening so I went into Manage your Device on the Amazon site, clicked on the Device, clicked on Special Offers and disabled the adverts for a £10 fee. Ads now only show in the Home screen underneath your books.
I got the version without Kindle Unlimited but upon starting the device up, the free trial was offered so I went for it - and I am now very pleased that I did - though up until yesterday, I was planning on cancelling it before the subsciription fee kicked in. Now that I understand it - I'll be sticking with it
COVERS:
I have gone for a different brand of cover - I've bought two - only because I fancied a change - these I have have reviewed and you can see in my review history.
On to the things I have now fully figured out.
PRIME READING
First of all, I will talk about Prime Reading. If you have Prime membership (where you get free deliveries and access to Prime Video & Music) you can borrow 10 eBooks and or eBooks with Audible at a time
Once you've finished a book or decided it's not for you you return it and can borrow another one.
If you cancel your Prime membership you will lose any books you have borrowed.
With Prime Reading there are a lot of books you can borrow but if, like me, you are quite picky about what you like to read / listen to you may find the choice to be quite limited.
AUDIBLE SITE
The Audible Site is part of Amazon but is a separate website.I
If you want to listen on your phone then download the App.
In the site you can browse and buy or borrow books plus it has podcasts there also. I haven't downloaded the app as I don't want Kindle on my phone.
KINDLE UNLIMITED - this is the good bit.
I am still on my free trial so I get one credit per month. One credit buys you any audiobook no matter what the price is.
When I first upgraded I picked out some of my existing eBooks which I wanted to use the Read & Listen feature with (Read & Listen allows you to switch from reading to listening or vice versa whilst keeping you in the same place in the book).
Some of my existing eBooks don't have an audio version, those that do have an audio version vary in price between around 99p to £7.99. With one credit I can buy the audiobook to go with my existing book.
Once the credit is used you then purchase other audio versions of your books. Soeme will have a reduced price, some won't.
If you want a new eBook with it's audio version, buy the eBook FIRST, then go back and buy the audio book - if you don't do it this way around you won't get a discount (if there is one available) for the audio version.
It's also worth pointing out that you can buy audio books only if you wish, plus some audiobooks are simply an audio without an eBook.
I f you were to go through your existing Kindle library and get the audio versions for each it would cost a fortune.
This is where I went searching. Unlimited says you can borrow loads of books for free & listen for free but I couldn't find where they were when browsing.
Compared to Prime Reading, Unlimited says it has loads of free books - loads more choice.
I found them yesterday!!!
In Amazon, click on Kindle Books under the product search box in the top middle of your screen.
Next, scroll down the page and to the left hand side is the menu.
Find ''Kindle Unlimited Eligible' and tick the box to the left of it. The screen will refresh.
Then in the menu to the left find 'Audible Narration' tick the box saying 'eBooks with Audible Narration'. The screen will refresh again.
These books all have the Read & Listen option and with Kindle Unlimited you can borrow up to ten books for free.
Make sure you have everything ticked- it's a bit of a pain but once you are there, there is a lot to choose from.
If you are also a Prime member you can actually borrow up to 20 books from this section.
I found a huge range of choice in here and have 20 borrowed. I can return them if I don't like them. The choices change but I've got a series of books of a crime thiller borrowed for free, This was a set read and reviewed by thousands with 4.5 to 5 star reviews I'm starting one of those today as there is another set I'm interested in which I could get all for free just now so if I don't like the crime set I'll replace them.
THEN, for the existing books I have on y Kindle I will wait for my next credit to be available and I can get the audio version using the credit.
I've filed my books into collections so that I know which ones I need to wait for credits to get the audio version for & I know which are borrowed with audio.
I've also set up a collection for those eBooks which have no audio and will be read only books.
I admit, I don't 'have' to go for particular authors nor the most recently published books - for me, I go for genres and customer reviews. I am picky but not that picky.
So therefore, now I understand all that, the Kindle itself is even better than I originally thought it was.
I hope this may have helped someone else who also got as confused as I did!
Or maybe, it's just me! Lol!
