If you recently purchased a new Amazon Kindle Fire HD, you might be turned off by the special offer ads it displays on the Lock Screen. Amazon did this to subsidize the cost of the devices. After some “flip-flopping” the company finally decided that users can opt-out of the ads with a one time charge of $15.
Not only do ads appear on the Lock Screen, but they pop up in different places throughout the interface. Here’s a text ad on the home screen (for Amazon of course).
It’s not obvious how to pay the fee for an ad free Kindle though. You can’t do it from the device, but instead you need to go to Amazon’s site and log in to your account.
After logging in, click Manage Your Devices under the Your Kindle Account section on the left side of the screen.
Then under Registered Kindles, you’ll see a list of the device(s) you own. Under the Special Offers column, click the Edit link next to Subscribed.
Then click to unsubscribe. Remember your credit card will be charged $15 to remove the Special Offers, but it’s a only a one time fee.
After you’ve unsubscribed from the special offer ads, turn on your device and make sure it’s connected to WiFi. Now your Lock Screen is ad free and will display random high quality backgrounds like it does on the first Kindle Fire.
And the text ads that appeared on the Home Screen are gone too.
Swipe from the top of the screen down to see your Notifications. One will say you’re device has been removed from Special Offers.
While the Lock Screen and various text ads are removed from your tablet, you’ll still see recommendations from other customers.
I didn’t have a problem with the special offer ads at first. Some of them are dumb, like credit card offers, but others show you new movies, books and music that’s on sale in the Amazon store. In fact the other day it displayed one that gave me a free $5 credit for the music store. But after opting out of them, the interface is a lot cleaner and nicer to use.
I think this is outrageous. I am glad that I bought a Google Nexus. I can see no point whatsoever in buying the Kindle Fire over the ad-free Nexus.
The Nexus 7 is a better device from nearly all aspects. The Kindle Fire however gives you a bit more for free if you are an Amazon Prime subscriber, namely:
- Free books every month (Lending LIbrary)
- Tons of free movies / TV Shows (Prime Instant Videos)
The Kindle’s e-book reader is also the best I’ve seen. But, if none of those things interest you, I’d recommend the Nexus 7 any day over the Kindle Fire.
Yeah, there is no doubt the Nexus 7 is a far better choice for power users. But like Austin said, it’s a fabulous device if you’re heavily invested in Amazon streaming content and a Prime member. It’s a media consumption device and not meant to be a productivity tablet.
Plus, you can still get some work done on it .. email, web browsing, light document work.
And I have to say it does an awesome job for Video, Books and Music. It’s a significant improvement over the first one without a doubt.
Then why bother to comment on here? Enjoy your Nexus and don’t be a downer
So l purchased the device then have to pay again for an ad free experience? I could understand if I was using free software or programs like Facebook but Amazon makes money off the consumer, advertiser then the consumer again?!? #classactionlawsuit
To me, it is worth the $15 to turn off the ads – it does get old pretty quickly. However, to make back my money; I have decided not to buy anything from or through Amazon for a good long time…I usually am good for at least $100.00 a month.
Childish and Petty…sure! – will I really do it…Absolutely! Just tired of paying on top of paying…