Factual Books

For a long time I was a fan of paperbooks. I always liked the idea of ebook readers, but I always felt it was a bit unfair that the books cost as much as tradition paperback books. The earlier version of the Kindle always looked a bit clunky. It almost looked like something transplanted from the 1980s into 21st century. It was also a lot more expensive than the new models. It was released as recently as 2007, which I find a little surprising as it is quite an obvious idea.









I must admit I am now converted and am the proud owner of the Kindle Paperwhite, 6" High Resolution Display with Built-in Light, Wi-Fi. It is still not quite as stylish as the lastest mobile phone or Apple gadget. The size of the boarder is slightly large compared to the screen, but it does look pretty slick and although it is bigger than a mobile phone it fits nicely in one hand.









The benefits are :

• It is lighter and easier to carry around than a book.
• You can obvious carry hundreds of books with you. 
• You can start to thin out your huge bookcases(we have more books than bookshelves)
• The battery hardly ever seems to need charging. 
• The best factor is the screen is easy on the eyes, really easy. You can read books on a tablet, but the Kindle is much nicer. 
• You can easily sync it with Amazon's huge ebook library.

It is basically the iPod of ebook readers. There are other e-readers out there, but they are not really any cheaper and ultimately amazon has the biggest selection of books so there is no real need to go elsewhere.
I guess there are a few negatives:

• The backlight used is a bit uneven. It is sort of blotchy, this does not really affect readability but it does look slightly odd.
• I don't find the store that easy to use. I tend to end up buying books on my mobile phone and then reading them on the kindle.  I think it is because the Kindle's built in store does not have recommendations. But also the summary does not show prices.
• Finally it is annoying that eBooks are not cheaper than paperbooks. This is not unique to Amazon, and it is partly because the UK Government charge VAT on eBooks but not physical books.

I have no idea how long the Kindles will be around. They remind me a bit of the iPod, when it first came out I carried it around with me. But improvements in the technology of phones have rendered them almost obsolete. I am sure the same fate awaits Kindles, but at the moment they have an edge over tablets - most due to readability. They are also more robust.

Thanks to www.kneadwhine.co.uk for buying one for me.