I love many things but my Kindle is definitely near the top. My awesome friends gifted me one for my birthday in 2010 and it has become a staple item in my purse. As part of my plan to practice writing, I am going to write an informative post on this topic. :)The number one reason why the Kindle is so great is definitely the convenience factor. In merely 10.2 oz (0.6375 lb) you can hold over ~1500 books - err.. not that I have that many books. I love the fact that I can carry numerous books with me and read whichever I feel like at that very moment. All the Kindle 2 come with WiFi and 3G for life anywhere in the world! This is a huge selling factor for the Kindle as most of the other eReaders to not have this service.
At the end of 2010, Amazon created a Kindle book lending feature. Using your friend's email, you can send a lend book request to them. When they accept it, they will have a copy of your book for 14 days. During that time, the book will be marked as "[on loan]" on your Kindle and you won't be able to read it. When I heard this, I was ecstatic because I close to never re-read books (other than the Bible obv :) ) so all the books I buy are pretty much useless once I read it and that's quite expensive for a 1 time read. Now I can lend it to friends to read and make it worth a bit more :) This is a fairly new website (as this feature was just released a month ago) Kindle Lending Club is a platform connecting different Kindle readers to lend books to each other. You can put in the book that you want, and if someone else has it, it'll match you guys up. So far I lent 2 books and borrowed 1. Pretty neat! One huge negative tho is that not all publishers allow this lending feature. I'm hoping that as time goes by Amazon will be able to get more lendable books. Right now, less than 50% of my books are actually lendable :( which is lame, since it's only a little bit cheaper than a real book, and a real book you can lend it endlessly. If you go to the Kindle book product page, it'll be clearly marked whether the book is lendable or not before you purchase.
Some cool features currently on the Kindle: (Amazon pushes out updates whenever they feel like it)
- Integrated Dictionary - When you move your cursor in front of a word, the definition will pop up at the bottom seamlessly and quite quickly. This is especially useful for me as there are alot of words that I don't know (how embarrassing -_-") and this is helpful when I read the Bible :)
- Bookmark
- Note/Highlight & view popular highlights
- Link to Twitter and Facebook
- Picture viewer
- Mp3 player
- Web browser - yes! you can actually surf the Internet on your Kindle! Although it's not that great since it's e-ink and not that fast but during emergency when you don't have anything else, that's great :) I think it's more for reading Wiki or blogs but I have checked email on it before when my phone is dead.
- Games - there are now games on the Kindle! Here are a couple free ones..
In case my post was extremely convincing..here is the link to buy the new Kindle that got released recently. Smaller (but same size screen, lighter and higher contrast.. booo :( doesn't it always suck when new stuff comes out?) If you buy from this link, I get make some $$ :)
