Friday, October 7, 2011

Special Offers Kindle can now have Offers Turned Off (for $30)


The Kindle Basic SO image comes from dvice.com, but that site got the story from Nate Hoffelder's The Digital Reader, where he explored a tip from Mobileread Forum's jswinden.

Having a preference, myself, for a personal reading environment without ads, I've recommended these only for those who really want those Special Offers and, as it turns out, many do. A visit to the forums will show how many either really like the feature or wish they had bought one, for special Amazon sales such as $200 off laptops or $500 off HDTVs or even a $10 gift certificate for $20 worth of Kindle books, and some have asked Amazon to let them have the option to have the special offers (which means ads also) if they want.

    However, a few have decided they'd rather have the Kindle without Special Offers, and Amazon does offer a 30-day full refund policy on their Kindles, which means some have returned a Special Offers model to order a regular Kindle while others have returned a regular one to get a Special Offers model.  Now there is another way, at least with the model Nate bought.  

  Nate found himself annoyed by the ads that he's been seeing with his new $79 Kindle Basic but also discovered that Amazon has added a solution for those who've decided they would prefer the Kindle Basic offers-free.  Under the Manage Your Kindle page, he saw that you can UNsubscribe from the Special Offers on the Kindle Basic by paying the difference in cost between the Kindle Basic SO and the Kindle Basic without SO.

  Amazon explains on that page: "Amazon is able to offer the Kindle at a subsidized price by delivering Special Offers and Sponsored Screenavers. By unsubscribing you will be charged $30 (plus applicable tax)."

  Nate says this works only for K4 although it could be that this is the model he bought so that's the only one it would show in his case, but I don't know.

  Nate dislikes ads so much that he's given up TV, cable, and he watches TV content online, where ads can be blocked.

  melissa, for her part, commenting to his story, says,
"There are no ads while you are reading.  Only the screen savers and a small banner at the bottom of the home screen.  The special offers however have been the real bonus.  We have probably paid for the Kindle with the savings from the offers.  The offers seemed to have slowed down, so maybe that was just a start up idea."

  Nate confirms that the ads aren't shown while reading.

I suspect that this option will show up in future software updates, maybe in both directions.


Kindle Touch 3G   Kindle Touch WiFi   Kindle Basic   (UK: KBasic)   Kindle Fire
Kindle Keybd 3G   (UK: Kindle Keybd 3G)   K3 Special Offers   K3-3G Special Offers   DX

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle


(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

3 comments:

  1. I haven't bought anything, but I've started getting Local Amazon advertisements in my email.

    Regards, Don

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Nate dislikes ads so much that he's given up TV, cable, and he watches TV content online, where ads can be blocked."

    Nate should consider the fact that the ads are paying for the TV content he's watching. If everyone blocked them like he does, there wouldn't be any TV content to watch. Blocking the ads may not be illegal (unless he's downloading the shows), but it's certainly against the Terms of Use on any TV site.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Has there been any mention of whether or not discounted models with "Special Offers" might be available to international customers (like Australia)?

    And what kind of special offers are being people getting?

    ReplyDelete

NOTE: TO AVOID SPAM being posted instantly, this blog uses the blogger.com "DELAY" feature.

Am often away much of the day, and postings won't show up right away. Posts done to use referrer-links may never show up.

Usually, am online enough to release comments within a day though, so the hard-to-read match-text tests for commenting won't be needed this way.

Feedback and questions are welcome. Thanks for participating.

Technical Problems?
If you're having problems leaving a Comment, Google's blogger-help asks that you clear the 'blogger.com' cookies on your browser's Tools or Options menu bar and that will fix the Comment-box problems (until they have a permanent fix).

IF that doesn't work either, then UNcheck the "keep me signed in" box -- Google-help says that should allow your comment to post (it's a workaround to a current bug).
Apologies for the problems.

TIP: There's a size limit. If longer than 3500 characters or so, in a text editor, make two posts out of it.

[Valid RSS]