For the past year or so I have had the Kindle on my Amazon.com wish list. I finally got it for Christmas from HH. I didn’t even expect it but it was definately much appreciated since I am such an avid reader and he is such an avid technology geek. I probably go through 2 books a week on average so I had been spending quite a bit of time at the library checking out books and then bitching to HH that they never have the ones that I am looking for.
I decided that I wanted the Kindle for a number of different reasons. I had read the reviews online and did a little bit of homework on the competitors since I have never used a reader like that before. The one thing that I was holding out for before I ran out and purchased it myself was that I had never seen one in person or messed with it so I was a little hesitant to go out and spend that much money.
I have had the Kindle for a few weeks now and here is what I think so far:
The Kindle 2 is lightweight and relatively small in size. It is smaller and lighter than most hardback books and weighs about as much as a paperback while being thinner than one. It fits in my purse and doesn’t weigh it down too terribly much.
It holds an enormous number of books. I know it all depends upon the file size and everything but come on, you would have to rent a U-Haul if you wanted to carry around all of the books that can be stored on the Kindle.
The books are less expensive than buying the paper versions. That means more money for me to spend on shoes and whatnot. Seriously, the average book price for Kindle through Amazon is $5-10 for your run-of-the-mill book. Textbooks and reference books cost more but they are still less than what you would pay for the print version. Plus, some books can even be found for free though so far I have only found the Classics.
The battery on it lasts forever which means more reading and fewer cords to drag around.
Books are downloaded through the Whispernet connection. This is Kindle’s wireless internet connection that is included in the purchase price. No extra fees for use!
There are a variety of other things that it can do like Minesweeper, store/convert documents, internet, audio books, play MP3s, blogs and newspapers.
It isn’t very attractive. It isn’t offered in any different colors, only white and there aren’t many case or skin options available.
There aren’t many options for sorting your books and the ones that exist aren’t very user friendly. There is no folder structure or anything like that. Either you use the available sort functions or you add tags to each individual book that can be searched.
There isn’t a whole lot of customization available. You can’t change the screensaver or the font, only the size of the font and spacing between lines.
There isn’t a light so reading in the dark isn’t an option unless you use an optional booklight that has to be purchased separately.
All in all, I love my Kindle 2 and it goes everywhere with me. HH hates the damn thing because all I ever want to do is read but that isn’t a new thing.
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