The Pros and Cons of Amazon's E Book Reader

The Kindle, Amazon's ebook reader is light weight, and magazine thin. It weighs only 10.2 ounces. The display screen is six inches. The whole device measures 8" x 5.3" x .36". It has a built in keyboard for making notations. A nice size to carry along with you when you travel and always on the go. No longer have to lug heavy books with you.

The Pros

The Kindle is completely wireless. It's 3G network let's you download books in under 60 seconds to your device.

Amazon has a large library of over 350,000 books, 5,500 blogs and subscriptions to magazines and newspapers, both US and internationally. A cost for a book on the Bestsellers List is $9.99, which is alot cheaper than the cost of what it would cost you to buy the hardcover book. You no longer have to wait for the paperback version before you can read it.

What I love is that you can read the first chapter of each book for free before you buy it. With the newspapers and magazines you get a two week free trial which also allows you to check it out before you buy it.

Better detail on the screen, very print like this is due to Amazons 16 shades of gray, electronic ink technology. You would swear you are reading the actual book.

Anti glare screen, which is great for your day out on the beach.

Font sizes are adjustable, you have over 6 different font sizes which is great for those that can't read small text.

The kindle has a New Oxford Dictionary built into it. If you don't know what a word means just highlight the word with your cursor and the definition will display on the bottom.

You can search for a certain word within a book or within your library of books, to find the information you want quickly.

Access to over 50,000 audible titles, with text to speech technology it will read the book aloud to you in either a female or male voice.

Longer battery life. You can read for up to 4 days with wireless on. With wireless off you can read for up to 2 weeks before having to recharge the battery. Charge time is only 4 hours charged with the usb cord to your computer.

Built in stereo speakers, Head phone jack on top

The kindle will remember the last page you read automatically.

With it's Whispersync technology you can easily switch back and forth between your Kindle and IPhone. You have to download the application from Amazon to get this to work.

You can listen to MP3's on your kindle by transferring them from your computer to your kindle with the USB plug that is including with the kindle.

The cons

The battery is sealed inside the kindle. There is no way to remove it. The bad thing is if it ever needs to be replaced Amazon charges $60 for this.

Images are great for books, but for magazines and newspapers actual photos aren't that clear.

Content is a bit expensive, hopefully the prices will come down a bit.

Their is no protective cover like their was with the first version of the Kindle. You will have to buy one in addition to the reader to prevent scratches, and to protect it from other damage.

It doesn't support PDF and WORD documents, they have to be converted by Amazon for a fee. But here's a tip if you have it sent to your amazon email address that you will get when you buy the kindle for your device, they will convert the file for you, and as long as you download into your device using the usb cord, you won't be charged.

No SD card slot, you get 2GB of internal memory that's it, but frankly 1500 books is alot, if you are unhappy about this buy the new Kindle DX that holds up to 3500 books instead but alot more expensive for the device.

In summary the kindle is worth the money just for the fact of it being wireless. Plus I like the ability to read blogs offline once downloaded into the device. No longer having to lug around heavy books with me everywhere I go. You will love the kindle , plus it cuts down on paper which is great for the environment.

Cost of the Kindle: $299
Where to buy: Amazon.com