The day has finally come. The one I’ve been waiting for. I am so excited it feels like Christmas. My Kindle 2 arrives today! I have wanted a Kindle since before they were first available and have been telling myself I would get one . . . someday. There was always a reason I needed to put off making the purchase. I did get my mom the first generation Kindle when they came out, so I have actually seen one, touched one, and used it (albeit briefly). While that assuaged my immediate lust for the Kindle, in a way it also increased my longing for one. Well, someday is finally here. All I have to do now is wait for UPS to arrive. It could be excruciating because they can deliver between 9 AM and 7 PM – so when will they get to my house?
What’s the big deal? Here are some of the reasons I have wanted a Kindle since I heard about them: in no particular order
- The ability to carry hundreds, if not thousands of books with me at one time
- Dust reduction. I have a severe allergy to dust, and the pages of books decompose and create dust. If I can convert the majority of my books to Kindle – I can reduce the amount of dust created.
- No more waiting for a book. I don’t like to shop in stores, so I eliminate the trip to the store. I can get a book downloaded direct to the Kindle at a moments notice, should I desire. And since I buy the bulk of my books from Amazon anyway, I don’t have to wait for them to be delivered.
- Conversion of PDF files to read on the Kindle. Since I review books for the LL Book Review, the bulk of my reviews are done from PDF’s, which believe it or not, I prefer versus reviewing directly from a book. This way, I won’t have to scroll back through the document when I leave off because the Kindle will keep track of where I am for me. I’ll also still have the PDF file so when I need to extract a quote from the actual work, I am able to do so easily. With a hard copy book (whether hard bound or paperback), I have to type any quotes I use – which while not difficult certainly takes more time and is more prone to error than the simple copy and paste method from the PDF’s.
- Reduction of eye fatigue. With the e-ink technology, the Kindle is more like looking at the page of a book than looking at a computer screen, so this will reduce the amount of eye strain. Plus, when my eyes are getting tired, I can always increase the font size.
- I will be able to get books from Smashwords.com as well as Amazon, because Smashwords has a Kindle format available. Plus, more sites like Smashwords are opening up, so one of the purportedly negative things about a Kindle, which is you are tied to Amazon, is quickly going away.
- The ability to highlight, bookmark, and make notes throughout a book. While I am not a student, I see this as having huge potential from the textbook angle. Plus, sometimes you just want to mark something to come back to it at a later time, or put a note as to what you were thinking for sharing with someone later.
Well, those may not be all of the reasons I am excited, but should be enough to start with. It was a choice between the Kindle 2 and the Kindle DX, and I did have to think long and hard about which one to get. Both have definite pros to them. My final decision was made due to the size of the Kindle 2, making it more portable. I didn’t want to carry around what amounts to a letter size device. If I had been getting it to strictly keep at home, then it would have been the Kindle DX all the way. What a wonderful pre-birthday birthday gift from my mom. Thanks Mom – I am now a part of the e-book revolution. My mom has read Misfit McCabe on the Kindle, now I can too.
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LK Gardner-Griffie
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit: Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe
For other e-book formats, visit Smashwords.com
To read book reviews by LK Gardner-Griffie, visit: The LL Book Review
Waiting for my kindle dx (arrives at my friend’s place june 11th, and hopefully he can get it up to canada soon after that) so can relate to how you’re feeling.
interesting to see you prefer the kindle 2 because of portability. I own a kindle 2 at the moment and the dx will be a good addition – however, agree with you that it’d be tougher to carry it around.
were there other factors that made you pick the k2 over the kdx?
Portability was the key factor in the selection. Other than that, I believe that the DX has more features, such as the native PDF reader so no conversion is required. But, if I need to convert a PDF or two, then so be it – the size factor still makes the K2 the preference. And the DX has more capacity, but I can either choose to back up to thumb drives for easy portability once I max out the K2 capacity (and I’m sure that ultimately I will max it out), or delete and redownload as necessary (if from Amazon).
I still think it’s a shame that Amazon removed the SD slot which was built in on the Kindle 1 – that made it an easy transfer of material, and improved the portability factor as well.
I hope you enjoy the DX – I’m jealous that you will soon have 2 Kindles!
Lucky! I’ve been wanting one myself but the prices are just too high for me! I’ve been reading books off of my iPod Touch lately, but the Kindle’s been on my wishlist.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!
Thanks Saul – I’m sure I will
I have a Palm which has e-book capability, I just have never used it much. I think the screen size and the fact that it doesn’t feel like a book are definite factors.
I understand the price factor – this is a gift – otherwise I would still be waiting.