About a month or so ago I bought myself an Amazon Kindle, it was one of those moments where I just needed to spoil myself and I’d been wanting to get one for so long that I just succumbed to temptation. I blame Amazon completely for releasing a sexy new version, was just too much for my gadget brain to take and it’s been so long since I spoiled myself with any gadgets.
For anyone who may not know what a Kindle is, it’s an e-book reader. It’s a device for reading books on, you can store thousands of books on it and order them wirelessly for instant download. They key thing about having a reader like the Kindle over say a laptop or an iPad is the screen. The screen has been specifically designed for comfortable reading, so it’s grey scale as opposed to colour and it looks like paper. Honestly anyone who’s seen it has said the same thing, it kind of looks like a piece of card has been stuck onto a plastic box. It’s kind of impossible to describe the screen so someone who hasn’t seen it.
The thing about a Kindle is it’s just an e-book reader, don’t think for a moment that you can play games, browse the web or anything else with it. It’s for reading books and that’s it, but what it does, it does fantastically. Actually to be fair it does have a rudimentary web browser and you don’t have to just buy books, you can upload pdf’s that you can read through it too.
The version I went for was the model with the 3G card as well as the wireless internet. You don’t have to pay anything for 3G usage, so no monthly bills, Amazon pays any usage charge. The thing I like about having the 3G option, is that it keeps your reading synchronised. So for example if you also have the Kindle reader software for PC or your phone. Whatever device you switch between, it will have the last page you read ready for you.
I just read Linchpin, by Seth Godin on it which I will try to review in a while, if I feel I can do it justice. I didn’t get any of the eye strain or tiredness that you might get from trying to read a book on a backlit screen like a phone or monitor. It’s a nice size to hold, lightweight but not too much and the page forward and back buttons are well placed for navigation. It does have a text to speech function but I found the voice to be too robotic sounding.
I really like my Kindle and if you’re looking for an e-book reader then I can’t recommend it enough. If you have any experience of one, or have any good e-book recommendations, why not comment below and let me know. If anyone wants to buy me the flashy but expensive official case with reading light, your more than welcome hehe.
P.S. Any links here to the Kindle are affiliate links, just wanted to let you know so you don’t think that this is a shameless promotion. I genuinely love my new gadget.
