I Love My Kindle

What's a Kindle you ask? It's Amazon.com's wireless book reading device that downloads books from Amazon.com's Kindle web site. This is how Amazon describes it: - Revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper. - Simple to use: no computer, no cables, no syncing. - Wireless connectivity enables you to shop the Kindle Store directly from your Kindle—whether you’re at home or in the back of a taxi. - Buy a book and it is auto-delivered wirelessly in less than one minute. - More than 400,000 books, newspapers, magazines, and blogs available available, including more than 101 of 112 current New York Times® Best Sellers. Kindles are just over 1/3 of an inch thin, the same as most magazines and weighs in at 10.2 ounces, lighter than a typical paperback. Kindle Books can be read on your laptop (I've installed it on my laptop, too), an iPhone or iPod touch. Rumor has it that it will soon be available for BlackBerry phones in the not too distant future.

But don't run out to buy one just yet! Amazon wants to start giving away its Kindle electronic reader to in response to the threat posed by Apple's new iPad. One report said that Amazon would start by providing the $259 device to subscribers of Amazon Prime, a $79 per year service that gives customers free two-day shipping on everything they buy from the web retail giant. The report said that Amazon believes that it can make money on the giveaway because its best customers would buy enough products to make up for the free device over a few years, especially when the company is able to bring production costs down.

The only thing I don't like about my Kindle is the lack of back-lighting. They say it saves on eye fatigue. I wish is was back lit with an on/off switch so I could be the judge. I'll just have to invest in another book light. (Now here's a novel idea - a decent book light that puts out significant light & whose batteries last a reasonably long time!)

What I love about my Kindle is saying goodbye to piles and piles of books (that I can't part with but will probably never find the time to read again). And its slim size will make it a convenient travel companion wherever I go. In spite of my actual age I guess I'm really a child of the computer age!