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the Kindle Paperwhite, the absolute top-of-the-line—yet affordable at $119—ereader for folks who only need a device for reading. Advertisers make it possible for Digital Media Mom to bring you great content each day for free, so thanks for your support.
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“I Heard Leaving My Laptop Turned On, On My Bed, Can Start A Fire. Is That True?”
Yes and no.
Your laptop has little heat vents on the bottom and anything that blocks those vents can cause the laptop to overheat. Leaving the laptop powered on, on a soft surface like a bed, sofa or pillow, can definitely block the vents and lead to overheating. Overheating can damage the laptop’s wiring and rechargeable battery, either of which can cause a fire. However, when a fire is actually caused by an overheated laptop it’s usually because the laptop was very old, had faulty wiring, or had a faulty/damaged/leaking battery.
Modern laptops, by which I mean any major-brand machine manufactured since about 2010 or so, have a built-in safeguard mechanism by which the machine will shut down if it starts to get too hot, long before a fire could occur.
A Snopes article addresses an urban legend that circulated back in 2010, about a house fire that was supposedly caused by a laptop left on a bed, summing up with this:
While it is generally not a good idea to leave unattended powered-up laptops (or indeed most any other electronic devices) perched upon pillows or mattresses or surrounded by easily combustible materials (such as comforters and blankets), or to fall asleep while using portable computers in bed, most of the inherent danger comes from the risk of one’s personal computer being one of those rare units that has a bad battery or has been wired improperly.
So while it’s not likely that leaving your laptop on your bed, pillow or sofa will cause a fire, it is possible. Since you can’t know for certain if your laptop’s wiring or battery may be faulty, it’s safest to only use a laptop on a hard surface with no vent blockage.
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And now…
I really love my Kindle Fire HDX, but some folks don’t want or need all the bells and whistles. They don’t need a device that can run apps or play videos, they just want to READ. For them, the Kindle Paperwhite is just the ticket. It offers all the same great e-reader functionality as you’d find in a Fire tablet, such as WiFi connectivity, the ability to enlarge or change the font, re-orient the screen from portrait to landscape and so on, but all that functionality comes in an elegant package that’s designed to do just one thing: make reading ebooks a pleasure.
