As I mentioned before, I was gifted a kindle as a present a few months ago. I have been using it almost nonstop since then. I thought I would give a little feedback on how the experience has been.
I was a person who always scoffed at the idea of buying and using a kindle. After all, I'm a heavy fan of the library/borrowing books and kind of a purist (my god that sounds snotty!) about books. I'm one of those that likes the weight of a book in my hand, the rustle of pages, etc.
That being said, I really, really appreciate this gift. There are some things that the kindle excels at. One is space saving. Books are bulky and heavy. If you're constantly on the move or travelling (as my family has been for the past three months) lugging around lots of books is a rather painful option. Along the same lines, it's a small device (I'm not all that excited about micro devices - that spells headache for me!) and really light. There have been many times when adding the kindle to the travel bag wasn't a space problem and saved me hours of boredom. One more thing to note. Anywhere you can access the internet, you can buy books. India is still in the dark ages in terms of libraries. The ones you do find, are small, private, cost money to belong to, and require that you have transportation to and from. It really is a lot of pain value. Need a new book? Bam. Shop and kindle will deliver instantly as long as you have wireless internet. One more positive thing about the kindle is that Amazon offers many, many free books/excerpts. You don't even have to shop from a computer, kindle has that feature built in. Like I mentioned, most of this won't be brand new novels, but you can find some really amazing and interesting reads. They also offer a lot of free classics.
On the other hand, there are a few things that are disappointing about the kindle too. Because it is so small and light, I worry constantly about breaking it - especially when travelling with it. I suppose you could buy a case for it, but I did not. Another thing to note is that the kindle isn't backlit. Unless you have a good source of light in the room, reading quickly becomes impossible, as I found out to my chagrin on a train. I was trying to put my kids to sleep without the light on and tried to read. No reading for you! Also, if you are a reading junkie like me and get tired of the free books, buying books adds up quickly. Our family is earning in rupees, so we're trying not to spend in dollars. This makes every purchase on Amazon debated as to the necessity. It also is really just another electronic device to stare at. I used to really contemplate which books to take home from the library because of time and space constraints. On the kindle, I feel like I should download and read anything and everything free. This leads to quite a bit of wasted time for me. I also get really frustrated when I like something I'm reading and find out it's just a teaser of a few pages. This gets really annoying. I also am finding many more fiction stories on Amazon than non, but that's an amazon problem, not a kindle one. I didn't find any effective way to sort the books on the kindle. There wasn't a way I found to tag books and keep track of what you read. I have some 500 books on there right now (I know, some collecting behavior going on there!) and it's a pain to have to sift through to find the ones I've not read yet.
What's your favorite/not so favorite features?
I was a person who always scoffed at the idea of buying and using a kindle. After all, I'm a heavy fan of the library/borrowing books and kind of a purist (my god that sounds snotty!) about books. I'm one of those that likes the weight of a book in my hand, the rustle of pages, etc.
That being said, I really, really appreciate this gift. There are some things that the kindle excels at. One is space saving. Books are bulky and heavy. If you're constantly on the move or travelling (as my family has been for the past three months) lugging around lots of books is a rather painful option. Along the same lines, it's a small device (I'm not all that excited about micro devices - that spells headache for me!) and really light. There have been many times when adding the kindle to the travel bag wasn't a space problem and saved me hours of boredom. One more thing to note. Anywhere you can access the internet, you can buy books. India is still in the dark ages in terms of libraries. The ones you do find, are small, private, cost money to belong to, and require that you have transportation to and from. It really is a lot of pain value. Need a new book? Bam. Shop and kindle will deliver instantly as long as you have wireless internet. One more positive thing about the kindle is that Amazon offers many, many free books/excerpts. You don't even have to shop from a computer, kindle has that feature built in. Like I mentioned, most of this won't be brand new novels, but you can find some really amazing and interesting reads. They also offer a lot of free classics.
On the other hand, there are a few things that are disappointing about the kindle too. Because it is so small and light, I worry constantly about breaking it - especially when travelling with it. I suppose you could buy a case for it, but I did not. Another thing to note is that the kindle isn't backlit. Unless you have a good source of light in the room, reading quickly becomes impossible, as I found out to my chagrin on a train. I was trying to put my kids to sleep without the light on and tried to read. No reading for you! Also, if you are a reading junkie like me and get tired of the free books, buying books adds up quickly. Our family is earning in rupees, so we're trying not to spend in dollars. This makes every purchase on Amazon debated as to the necessity. It also is really just another electronic device to stare at. I used to really contemplate which books to take home from the library because of time and space constraints. On the kindle, I feel like I should download and read anything and everything free. This leads to quite a bit of wasted time for me. I also get really frustrated when I like something I'm reading and find out it's just a teaser of a few pages. This gets really annoying. I also am finding many more fiction stories on Amazon than non, but that's an amazon problem, not a kindle one. I didn't find any effective way to sort the books on the kindle. There wasn't a way I found to tag books and keep track of what you read. I have some 500 books on there right now (I know, some collecting behavior going on there!) and it's a pain to have to sift through to find the ones I've not read yet.
What's your favorite/not so favorite features?
No comments:
Post a Comment