I will merely remark that I bought the original ipad right when it was announced in 2010. I had to stop using that one because I needed to keep up (for my work), so I gave it to a friend who is still using it now. No battery problems so far.

Get an iPad. No question. I have a Kindle fire which I got before I got an iPad. It is a paperweight. I don't think I've turned it on for at least a year. Maybe two. I use my iPad mini every day. I do have a regular kindle for reading on b/c I don't like a tablet to read on.

Yeah, repairs are expensive! If you really like your device and it works for you, then $79 is good to get you a few more years out of it.

Just recently paid $79 for iPhone battery at the Apple Store, but it was cheaper than a new phone which I really did not need. I did have them run diagnostics in case it wasn't the battery. Working great since then.

Also paid $129 to repair cracked iPad screen. But there is nothing wrong with it, so it didn't make sense to toss it.

Warning about iPads. You can't repair them. My kids are required to have them for school. My dd's stopped charging six months ago, after 18 months of moderate use. I had Apple as well as an indendent computer repair, look at it and they seemed to think that something just inside the iPad, where you plug in the charger was out of kilter. Too bad, so sad, they told me. Apple fixes phones, laptops, etc, but not iPads. Then two weeks ago, my son's iPad, fully charged, would flash on for a second, then off. I took it to Apple. He fooled with it, was able to get it turned on, but the display was out of whack, totally pixilated. Basically, no good as the screen was all fuzzy. His was also about 18 months old.. Had to replace his as well.

i have the original iPad, from when it first came out. Still works fine, but because it's so old, it can't be updated, and newer apps will not work on it. We still use it for movies and such. I replaced it a while ago with an ipad2. So while I haven't had any issues with mine, I did have to replace two that were newer than mine this year and totally frustrated, especially the one where it just stopped charging. Seemed like that was something that could be easily fixed by replacing a part. I love the functionality and compatibility of all my Apple products, but at the price for an IPad, very irritatated two of them crapped out so quickly.

Thanks for the responses!

I decided to buy a new Kindle rather than repair the dead battery old one. For a repair that will cost over half the price of a new machine it made sense to me to just upgrade and be done.

Re. upgrading to an iPad--I am a very frequent Amazon customer and use my Kindle strictly for reading downloaded books or (rarely) watching content, and surfing the web, so spending $500 for the iPad instead of $100 (incremental cost of new machine and cover over repair) doesn't really make much sense for me at this time. I will now modify my expectation on useful life of the equipment and assume/hope to get 3-4 years out of a Kindle. Who knows what will be available in 3 more years?!