The Amazon Kindle: A Product Review

Maybe this is my dream and I am all alone, but I have a dream where I get up the morning after a full day of Saturday College Football and can read every paper in the country in my recliner. I lean back with a glass of orange juice and some donuts and relive the Saturday of glory through the accounts of sportswriters nationwide without having to turn one page. Thanks to the Amazon Kindle, I can do just that!

This little six inch beauty weighs less than a paper back book yet is more powerful than the first 3 computers I ever owned. I can store well over 1,000 books while downloading takes me only about 60 seconds. Which gets me back to the dream as I sit wonderfully downloading every newspaper from across the country with orange juice by my side.

You might be wondering how I am able to read these newspapers if it is books that are what Amazon has touted with the Kindle. Well, that was the old Kindle, the clunky thing that was a first-time technology shot if I've ever seen one. This version of the Kindle can download hundreds of newspaper subscriptions from across the country and have them all ready for you when you wake up in the morning.

Newspapers and books not your thing? How about reading Time or Newsweek from this comfortable little gadget and being able to skip over all those annoying ads and inserts! The point is that if you are a reading nut at all this is your version of the IPod. Storing hundreds or over a thousand books, newspapers, or magazines in one place that is easily transportable is a reader's dream.

Now, I would be remiss if I didn't say that this little thing is far from perfect. Like all pieces of technology with a hard drive, it can be slow at times and will freeze up on occasion. The scrolling on the screen can also be difficult at times, but this is the same issue that everyone has with a touch screen device. If Apple and Microsoft haven't figured it out, I'm not going to complain that Amazon hasn't.

The best thing about the Kindle is that Amazon seems to have learned from the mistakes made with the first one. They have made different shades of grey for different lighting and made the screen more readable in light. Overall, I love this little gadget even for all of its flaws!