Overall Thoughts

I’ve enjoyed reading for a long time, I’ve always loved the look and feel of holding a real book. There’s something about the smell of a real book, turning the pages that just seems right.

I’d seen the kindle E-readers for a while, my opinion had always been that i liked buying paper books. It wasn’t until one of my clients highly recommended a Kindle Paperwhite to me, that i seriously considered one.

What i like about the Kindle

The Screen

So lets be honest this is the main reason to buy the kindle. I could read on an iPad or tablet or even my phone. This however isn’t practical for me, i have to wear glasses and cant focus on screens like that for more than half an hour without needing to stop. I’m frankly amazed by the e-ink screen. I can read for hours without getting eye strain. If you love reading a paper book, then the kindles screen is the closest thing you’ll get.

The Size and Weight

Most paper books have a bit of weight to them, especially if they are a hard back edition. The thing i love about the kindle is that is is light, like ridiculously light. Its a pleasure to hold for hours, without your hands getting tired. The size is great to, i like to go for a walk at lunch and read in the park. The kindle is the perfect size to take on a walk, its much less bulky that a typical paper book.

The Customization

Unlike a traditional book i love the fact you can customize the font type and size. I wear glasses normally to read, however with the kindle i can increase the font enough that i am actually able to read without them. You can even save your font settings into a custom setting, allowing you to apply it easily to each book. You could even have different settings for different places and times of day.

The Price of Books

Now i know what your thinking, yes the kindle itself does cost $199 (In Australia anyway) but i do believe it is worth the investment. Once you have the kindle the books are a little bit cheaper, normally by a few dollars, but sometimes by a lot; especially if they are on sale.

Dictionary and Wikipedia

This feature can be so useful at times. I’m reading a Greek mythology book at the moment and sometimes you just want to check what a word means. With the kindle you simply press and hold a word. If it is in the dictionary, then it will pop up with a definition. If it isn’t, then it searches Wikipedia. I’ve got to say that after using it for a while, the Wikipedia search is pretty accurate.

The Storage

The great thing about the kindle is that is can be not just one book but many. With the 8 Gigabytes of storage the kindle is able to store a ridiculous amount of book, more than i’ll ever need. This makes it especially great if your somewhere that doesn’t have internet, like a cruise for example. You can load it up with books and not have to worry that you will finish them all.

The Battery

Now i was skeptical of the battery, i wasn’t sure how long it would last. I can say however that i’m pleasantly surprised, I’ve been able to read for weeks on a single charge. Now this is probably due to the fact that i also don’t use the backlight, I find that it takes away from the effect of the e-ink screen. I’d much rather just turn on a lamp.


What i don’t like so much like about the Kindle

There’s nothing that i dislike about the kindle, but i do have two little gripes.

The Wallpaper

Something small that i wish you could change would be the wallpaper. When you lock the kindle you get a random wallpaper chosen by Amazon. I really wish you could upload your own images to your amazon account and have it display those images. Maybe in the future.

The Kindle Store

One thing i found a little more difficult was buying the books and setting up an amazon account in the first place. I downloaded the kindle app for my phone and bought a book, it didn’t show up and i ended up somehow buying it twice. Then after buying a few i realized that the prices on the kindle app were is USD and not AUD. Even though my amazon account was set to AUD. In the end i started buying them through the amazon store app as they showed the correct prices.

Overall Thoughts

Overall i really love the kindle. There’s nothing that i dislike about it, it does exactly what i bought it for and does it well at that. If you are looking at getting one, all i can say is go for it, you wont regret it.