Tuesday, September 28, 2010

My New Kindle: My New Love

I've officially gone one month without soda. It's pretty easy to drink water or tea or milk now instead of going off to get a carbonated, caffeinated, syrupy, sugary drink of deliciousness. I find that I actually don't have cravings, and though there are still two sixteen ounces bottles of unopened Dr. Pepper sitting in the refrigerator, it takes no effort at all to reach for a bottle of water or the milk instead of the soda. I might as well tell Boyfriend to go ahead and drink them since I'm fairly certain I won't be picking up my soda habit again. (I kept them around just in case I decided in a hurry to go back to soda so I told Boyfriend he couldn't have them.)

Anyway, I've decided that since I've had my lovely Kindle for a week, I'd give a review of it and share my thoughts with the world. Or...you know, the two people who follow this blog, and the occasional passerby that reads my little piece of freedom.

The Kindle Boyfriend purchased for me is the Third Generation Kindle. Mine has Wi-Fi, but does not have 3G. (I told Boyfriend that I didn't need the one with 3G just like I didn't need the iPod touch because it had 3G.) Connecting to a wireless server is easy and straightforward. The qwerty keyboard makes it easy to type in what you need. I have no complaints about the keyboard.

In fact, I didn't even need to do more than skim the owner's manual. The Kindle is so simple to use that a child could do it. Okay, considering how stupid most children today are, probably not. But a pre-teen could probably manage it without any difficulties.

The Kindle is small and light. It easily fits in my purse or laptop case to be toted around anywhere (I bring it to work everyday) without any problems. The screen reads just as well in sunlight as it does indoors, and while I do need a book light to read after dark, it's not an inconvenience. It's one of the pleasures of owning one of these things.

My research concludes that my Kindle can carry up to 3,500 books, and I can easily store books I've purchased in the Archives to not take up space, and then re-download them (at no charge) when I decide I need them again. I have already put my Kindle's user's guide in the Archives in case I do need it later, and Boyfriend accidentally sent Little Women there when he was exploring my new toy, and it was simple enough to retrieve it and put it back where it belonged.

The convenience of being able to carry 65 books (yes, I've already downloaded 65 books to my Kindle) around with me all of the time with absolutely no stress on my back or bag absolutely thrills me. My complete collection of Jane Austen novels alone weighs over ten pounds, but now I can carry them around with other books and have it weigh only 6 ounces.

I'd say the only thing that irritates me about my Kindle is the placement of the turn page buttons. There are next page buttons, one on either side of the Kindle, and two previous page buttons that are smaller and located right above the next page buttons. I'm not sure why, but my hands automatically click the left side button when I want to go back a page, and the right side when I want to go forward. This is irritating because I'm not always thinking that my left hand needs to be higher up to hit the correct button. It would make more sense to me if there was only one next page button on the right, and one previous page button on the left. Years of reading normal books has conditioned me to use my right hand to turn the pages forward, and my left hand to turn the pages back, and since most people probably have the same conditioning I'm probably not the only one who feels this way.

I am rather disappointed that I could not find Gone with the Wind on Amazon's list of Kindle books, however I'm sure I can dig up a PDF online for it. It's incredibly convenient that I can also put PDFs on my Kindle. I have D&D DMGs and Monster Manuals on PDF (don't judge my nerdy-ness!) and in hard copy that would be more convenient to carry on my Kindle when I'm traveling to other host homes for sessions. (Again, don't judge me!)

I've been reading my Kindle every single day for five hours or more since I got it, and it's still got a third of battery left. If I turned it completely off instead of putting it into sleep mode at night, the battery would last longer. I only need plug in my Kindle to charge, by the way. I don't need it plugged in to order/download a book. That is done through the Wi-Fi, and each book takes mere seconds to transfer as long as I'm connected to internet. And if I order something while my Kindle is offline, it is immediately and automatically downloaded as soon as I have a connection.

It's fabulous, and I love, love, love this thing.

Have I even mentioned the convenience of being able to sit it down and not have to worry about it flipping closed or bending pages? And I can eat comfortably while reading because I only need one hand to operate it. (New thought: this is probably why they have both buttons on two sides. Well, it makes more sense now, I guess.)

And I'm a big fan of accessories for anything and everything so it should come as no surprise that I've gone off and ordered a pink leather book binding and a pink sleeve case and screen protectors for my Kindle. They arrived today (only four days after I ordered them!) and while Boyfriend thinks it's a little ridiculous, I love it. Truth be told, I would have gotten blue accessories for my Kindle because blue is usually my favorite color, but after weighing the pros and cons of blue I opted for my second favorite color. The reason I chose not to get blue is because Boyfriend has made it very clear that he wants to use my Kindle, and if I've learned anything from Boyfriend borrowing my things, it's that if he likes it I don't ever get it back. (I'm still mourning the loss of my uber cool coffee mug from Starbucks that I got to use a week before Boyfriend started taking it while I was sleeping and now he leaves it in the car so I can't even reclaim it.) Boyfriend will have nothing to do with my Pink Lady (that's what I've named her) now, so I feel I made a good investment.

And so I will close with a portrait of my beautiful Pink Lady.

Unfortunately, the Silicone Case doesn't actually fit my Kindle since they sent me a generation two version instead of three, but I'll make do until the new one arrives. Yes, I've ordered another one. And I'd return this one if it wasn't going to cost more to ship the return than the thing cost me in the first place.

3 comments:

  1. Your Pink Lady is lovely, Chanel. I am green with envy. :)

    I'm glad you're enjoying your new toy, and I dearly hope those pink coverings will keep Boyfriend's hands OFF!!!

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  2. It seems to be working. He looked at it today and sighed like he was extremely put out about it, then turned back to his computer. But I just caught him looking at Kindles online, so I suspect he'll be ordering one for himself now. Although his iPhone can get e-books, so it's not strictly necessary.

    And it's not that I don't like to share. I'd have no problem letting him use it occasionally if I thought I'd be able to get it back. But I know he won't give it back. So he's got to leave it alone.

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  3. The new Kindle is an impressive piece of engineering - especially now that they've got the price down to something mere mortals can afford.

    Hey, holiday shopping season is coming. I can always dream, right?

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