Okay, so admittedly, i'm a closet Geek (among other things... closet Goth, closet Ninja -- kind of reminds me of Hellboy and Professor Bruttenholm's admission of "being a Catholic... among other things"), and have a penchant for new gadgets when they surface whether or not they have much direct bearing on my life. However, I just bought a new Kindle from Amazon, and am totally psyched about it! Want to know what it is?1) Kindle "digitizes" all books and puts them in a nifty e-format that allows you to keep all your books in one little device. This is particularly handy for me as i seem to be continually lugging 15 - 20 pounds of books around with me everywhere i go, and so now won't have to. Plus, i can store around 250 books on my little device, so if, on our next trip to India, i get tired of reading one book, i can choose from 249 others if i want to and never have to add any more weight than the 6 oz or so that the device weighs itself.
2) Kindle links directly to Amazon.com and provides you instant access to their on-line bookstore. If you wanted to download...say... Bill Strickland's newest book called "Make the Impossible Possible" (i just did! Can't wait to read it!), you just click "go to Kindle Store", type in the title, and in less than 1 minute, the book is yours on your Kindle. It also uses Sprint's network, so there's no need to find a "wi-fi hotspot". If Sprint has cell phone coverage, you have access. And no, you don't even have to pay for a "monthly charge" or anything. It's just free for you if you own a Kindle.
3) Books are cheaper for Kindle! Usually, anything you download for Kindle is about 1/3 or more off the price of a "regular book". Plus, Bestsellers and New Releases all sell for $9.99. In addition, i've found several books that are literally $.99 or less than $3.00. I downloaded Inazo Nitobe's classic "Bushido, The Soul of Japan" for $.99.
4) Amazon backs it! Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com basically said that his goal is to have anything ever printed, and everything printed from this point forward digitally available for Kindle in the next 18-24 months. This is actually the biggest reason i bought a Kindle instead of a Sony eReader or an Illiad. Both of the latter are actually better designed products than the Kindle, i think, but neither are backed by Amazon.com's powerhouse for delivery of product.
5) Kindle has cool other "accessories". Don't know what a word or term is? No problem, it's hot-linked to Wikipedia and you can find out. You can also add your own highlights, notes and bookmarks just like in a "real book". The display is also not backlit, so it even LOOKS like the pages of a regular book and won't burn your eyes over long-term reads.
6) Paper is evil and must therefore be destroyed! No seriously. I HATE paper. It's messy, wasteful and now, unnecessary! Every time you buy a Kindle book, you save a tree... or close to it. No more paper books means it's better for the environment. And leaves a lot more space on your bookshelf for other knick-knacks.
7) Everything you buy is backed up on Amazon's server. If you ever lose or break your Kindle... no problem. Your entire library just loads right to your new one!
Like all products, it does have some quirky inconveniences, like you can't really share, "own" or lend a copy of your books to anyone else. You also can't export your notes or highlights to a digital document (to my knowledge) for easy incorporation or usage, and finally, you are, to some degree, eventually still dependent upon that scourge of all cool technology, "battery life" (though Kindle's battery lasts several days before needing a charge). It's also expensive. At $400 each, i became very grateful for my professional expense money or i would have had to still be sticking to dead trees. Also, Amazon is so back-loaded with orders for Kindles that if you order one today, it may take as long as a month for you to get it. sigh.
But all things considered, i really like mine!
You can check out some of the other specs and features for Kindle from Amazon here.
