by Elton Gahr

Created on: September 04, 2010

Even after I ordered the Kindle I was uncertain if it was a good decision. I liked the idea of the device and I read a lot but the question is whether I would like the device itself was still questionable. After all it is a major departure from the way that I had read in the past and I could have discovered that I simply did not like it. This was not the case though and after having it for a few months it has actually surpassed my iPod Touch, not as the device I uses the most but, as the device that I most enjoy using and this is true for a number of reasons.

The first thing about the kindle, or any electronic ink device is that it feels much more like you are actually reading than you would expect. It in fact is difficult to actually explain how it feels without using it. It is a device that is not back lit but in fact has the words actually on the screen.

The second advantage of electronic ink is the battery life. It is almost impossible to run out of charge on the Kindle unless you just stop bothering to ever plug it in because you can read for many hours without the charge really going down very much.

One of the major devices which is challenging the kindle is the iPad, and mostly because it can do so many other things. This is in many ways the weakness of the kindle as it is a device that really only does one thing, while the iPad does many, but there are a number of features on the Kindle for making the reading experience better which are worth looking at.

All the things that you would expect are on the Kindle, you can easily search books, bookmark them, leave notes and change the text size. There are also a few you might not expect. The text to speech feature is my favorite of those that I did not expect and while the computer voice that reads it still has no inflection in the words but it does let me continue to 'read' my book while I do chores around the house something that I could not do before.

I strongly encourage anyone who likes to read to consider the Kindle eBook reader. It is a great experience and while I still like a physical book from time to time I actually have grown to prefer reading on this device to paper.

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