Episode: 1809
Title: HPR1809: My "New" Used Kindle Touch
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1809/hpr1809.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 09:32:27

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This is HPR episode 1,809 entitled, My New Used Kindle Touch.
It is hosted by John Kulp and is about 11 minutes long.
The summary is, I talk about why used stuff is often better than used stuff,
with my new used Kindle touch and examples.
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Hey everybody, it's John Kulp and Life Yet Louisiana,
and I'm going to record an episode today about a new device that I just got,
and it also got me to thinking about, in general terms,
how I tend to buy used stuff rather than new stuff whenever I can.
I find that not only can you save a lot of money,
but oftentimes the stuff you get is actually better,
at least better from a hacker's perspective.
I mean, for technology, I will occasionally buy new things,
but I am frequently buying computers at Goodwill.
We have these awesome thrift stores over here,
a thrift store is a place where people donate stuff,
and then the store turns around and sell us at a really cheap price.
And our thrift stores are very, very cheap here in Life Yet.
Not quite as good as the ones in Austin, Texas,
where when I was in graduate school there,
those were truly phenomenal.
But we have some pretty good ones here,
and I've bought tons of old computers there,
like computer tower type computers, usually,
from the, I don't know, 2004 to 2007 era,
and I still use those as my servers.
I have once found a Mac Mini,
like one of the old G4 Mac Minis there for $5.
The tower computers normally go for about $8.
I bought recently an HP LCD 19-inch flat screen monitor for $9.99,
and I brought it to work, and now that's the monitor
for my Mac Mini over there on my desk.
I bought many routers, printers.
I've just recently, for $3.99,
bought an HP LaserJet.
Let me see if I can see that number.
2012, it's a small laser printer,
and it had toner in the cartridge, and it works great.
So that's my office laser printer now.
The printers that we have at home are both ones that I got at Goodwill for.
I think that the black and white one that we use the most,
I got for maybe $11.99.
It's an HP LaserJet 3200,
combination packs, scan, and printer.
And I have an HP Color LaserJet 6122, I think it is,
and I got that for $5.
And then I had, of course, buy some new toner cartridges,
but the stuff works great.
I also like used books.
If I'm going to buy a physical book rather than an ebook,
I almost always want to buy a used book,
because you can get it for so much cheaper and often better quality as well.
Let's say clothes.
Used clothes are almost always way cheaper than new clothes.
And for example, my shirt of choice is almost always a pull-over polo kind of shirt
that's got the two or three buttons up top and the short sleeves.
And those are very easy to find in good condition,
practically new condition,
at many, many thrift stores,
and usually for between like two and six dollars.
And so I let somebody else pay that initial price of $40 or $60 for the shirt,
and then I will buy it later after they've worn it a couple of times
for just a couple of bucks.
I don't see why I should have to pay all that money up front.
So anyway, my latest used product that I really, really like,
and that brings home the value of a used older kind of product, is a Kindle Touch.
This is a device that I saw in a local pawn shop.
I want to say it might have been six months ago.
I went to the pawn shop.
I would stop into these places periodically just kind of see what they got.
And they had this Kindle Touch in there.
They had the absolutely crazy asking price of $99 on it.
And as soon as I showed an interest in it,
the proprietor of the pawn shop said,
oh yeah, I'll sell you that for $50.
And honestly, I thought that was still a little bit high.
I mean, you can buy a brand new Kindle paper wide for a hundred bucks.
And so for a device that was two or three years old,
I didn't think it was really worth $50.
So I said, thanks for showing it to me, and I'll check back in.
So a couple months later, I went back.
They still had that same Kindle Touch there.
The guy offered me the same deal.
And again, I said, no thanks.
A couple more months.
This has probably been six months now since the first time I saw it.
And I stopped in there last week.
And they still had the thing.
And by this time, the battery was totally out.
I mean, I had to stick it into a charger for a few minutes just to prove
that it would still work.
And I finally just offered them.
I said, I know this thing has been in your shop for a really long time now.
Any chance you will sell this to me for $30.
And it was still marked at $100.
And I think everyone knew that was a crazy price.
But I guess they've got to start somewhere.
So I offered $30 and the lady behind the counter said,
tell you what, I'll give it to you for $40, including all the taxes and everything.
And I said, done.
Handed it over to $20 bills and walked out with a new Kindle Touch.
And I'm really happy with it.
It's in many ways it's better than the Kindle Paper White.
At first, it had some problems.
Like, it wouldn't read the e-books that I put on there.
And the experimental web browser didn't seem to work right.
Like, it wouldn't accept a URL that I typed into it.
And there was one more problem.
I don't remember exactly what the problem is.
But then I had the bright idea to update the firmware,
thinking that maybe the person who had this before was one of those really not tech savvy people
who never do any kind of updates.
And so I ran the little firmware update program on the Kindle.
And when I rebooted it, everything worked.
It's one of the rare times in my life where a firmware or software upgrade
actually fixed all of the outstanding problems.
Instead of either leaving the problems there or introducing new problems.
So anyway, I really liked this Kindle Paper White.
And I thought that I would take advantage of one of its features that is not present anymore
in the newer versions of the Kindle to have a fun little conversation with it.
This actually has text-to-speech capabilities.
It's got a little speaker.
And it also has a headphone jack.
And I recorded a conversation with the thing.
Actually, what I had to do to make this work was record its part using the text-to-speech.
I made an e-book of its script, loaded the e-book onto the Kindle,
and then ran the Kindle output into my mixer and then recorded it on my computer.
And I will, I have a series of play buttons to play its responses to my questions here.
So let's see, let's talk to my Kindle Paper White a little bit.
So, sorry, not Kindle Paper White, Kindle Touch.
I'm insulting it by calling it the Kindle Paper White.
So Kindle Touch, tell me some ways in which you are better than the new-fangled Kindle Paper White.
Well, for one thing, I have some audio capabilities.
I can do text-to-speech, and I can even play MP3 files while you're reading a book.
The newer Kindle Paper White cannot do either of these things because it does not have a speaker
or a headphone jack.
Nice. What else?
I also have twice the storage capacity as your Kindle Paper White.
I have 3G connectivity.
I don't have advertisements like your Paper White, and I am also much more hackable.
Hackable. Oh, I like the sound of that. I like the hack stuff. What do you mean by this?
What I mean is that my older firmware allows you to install and select your own fonts.
For example, you install the Open Dislexic font, and now you can turn every book you read into a
dyslexic-friendly book on the fly. Does your Kindle Paper White allow this?
No, no, it doesn't do that.
I didn't think so.
So, is there any way in which you don't quite measure up to the Kindle Paper White?
The only way I come up short against the Kindle Paper White is that I do not have a built-in
backlight. You'll have to shine a light on me to be able to read a book in dark conditions.
Yeah, that's unfortunate. One of the great features of the Kindle Paper White is the
built-in backlight that allows you to read in the dark. But that's not a deal breaker.
Are there any other reasons why it's better to have purchased you than to have bought a new Kindle
Paper White? Sure. You got me for 40 bucks instead of the $100 you paid for your new Kindle
Paper White, which doesn't even have 3G and it has ads every time you turn the screen off.
Yeah, I got to agree with you there. I did pay a lot of money for the Kindle, and I even bought
the one that was discounted because it's subsidized by ads. And I got to hand it to you. It's nice
to see when I turn you off. I don't see an advertisement. I just see a nice image there. So,
anyway, thanks for talking to me. And that was really fun. I hope you guys have enjoyed my little
intro to the Kindle Touch and talking about used stuff versus new stuff. And I will be back with you
some other time. Bye.
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