Amazon Kindle 2 – For The Avid Reader
Got a real bookworm on your Christmas list? Are you concerned about the depletion of natural resources? The Amazon Kindle might be just the perfect Christmas gift. With competitively priced books, free 3G wireless connectivity to get the books and advanced e-ink technology, the Amazon Kindle is considered by many as one of the best gifts for Christmas. Read on to see what makes the Kindle such a great gift item.
Sleek and Light
The Kindle is lighter than a typical paperback book and it’s as thin as most magazines. This kind of sizing makes the Amazon Kindle ebook device extremely portable and easy to carry with you when you’re on the go.
No Computer Required
Unlike some other portable ebook readers the Amazon Kindle does not require a computer. The Kindle has a celluar based 3G interface that is paid for by Amazon. This means that whenever you need another book it’s a quick download away. You don’t have to set anything up. Just login to Amazon, select your book and it’s downloaded to your Kindle in about 60 seconds. You do have to pay for the book, but not for the wireless service to get the book.
Advanced Ergonomic Design
The Amazon Kindle was designed to be easy to hold and easy to read. It can be held with one hand and it has page turning buttons on both sides. This means when you’re sitting for a long reading session you can comfortably change hands and change pages. The Kindle is actually easier to use than a regular paperback or hard cover book. The 5-way controller enables precise on-screen navigation when you need to select text for highlighting or looking up words.
Long Battery Life
A lithium polymer battery is standard on the Amazon Kindle. If you leave the wireless radio on you can read for up to 1 week without a battery recharge. Turn the wireless of and you can read for up to 2 weeks on a batter charge. Most people will leave the wireless radio off when they are not downloading a new ebook. When the battery does need to be charged you can use the included charging power adapter, or you can use a micro-USB cable and connect the Kindle to a computer’s USB port for charging.
How To Get eBooks
You can browse the Amazon Kindle store right on the Kindle to find the book that you want. Books are downloaded to this ebook device using using Amazon’s Whispernet technology. Whispernet is simply a 3G high speed data network that makes it possible for you to wirelessly search for, find and download the e-content. Most items you download are available to you in 60 seconds or less. This is not the same wireless technology you have in your home wireless network. This is the same technology used for your cell phone. Therefore, you never have to worry about having coverage to download your next book. And as mentioned above, Amazon pays for all wireless connectivity. Coverage for downloading is possible in over 100 countries. No matter where you travel, you’ll never be without something to read. One thing to note for U.S. customers traveling abroad. There is a $1.99 fee when downloading books or single issues of periodicals from your archived items or the Kindle store when traveling internationally. You can find all the details at Amazon’s website. My recommendation is to ensure you’ve downloaded everything you might possibly need before you leave the country.
Lots Of Storage And No Lost Books
The Amazon Kindle 2 can hold over 1,500 books. Plus, all the books you purchase are automatically backed up on Amazon’s servers. That means you can re-download your purchases at anytime.
Paper Like Screen
With the latest in electronic ink technology, the Kindle has the appearance and readability of printed paper. If you’ve ever read from a computer screen for long periods of time and found it to be a headache inducing activity, you’ll love the Amazon Kindle. The text is sharp, there’s no screen glare in any type of light and unlike a paper book, font sizes are adjustable so you can choose a font that is comfortable for you. When I first saw the Kindle I had to do a double take because the text was so clear. The screen will also manually rotate from lanscape mode to portrait mode for easier viewing of maps, graphs and tables.
Built In PDF Reader
Do you have many documents in PDF format that you’d like to read on the Amazon Kindle? It’s possible and it’s easy. There are two ways to accomplish it. The first way is to use Kindle’s Personal Document Service. You send your document to your Kindle email address and Amazon will format and wirelessly send the document to your Kindle. There is a small charge for this service. To avoid the charge you can send an email to “name”@free.kindle.com with your documents. You can then download the documents via your computer and use a USB connection from your Kindle to your PC to transfer the documents to the Kindle.
Text To Speech
Amazon includes an experimental text to speech feature. With this feature enabled, the Kindle will read English documents out loud to you. Even though the feature is experimental it works surprisingly well. You can tells it’s computer speech, but it’s pretty close to a real human voice. The speaking rate can be increased and after some getting used to it’s really easy to follow the material.
Dictionary With Built In Lookup
The Amazon Kindle comes with The New Oxford American Dictionary with over 250,000 entries and definitions. You can seamlessly look up the definitions of English words without interrupting your reading. If you find a word you don’t know simply move the cursor to it and the defintion of that word will automatically display at the bottom of the screen. Never again will you have to wonder what a word like zymoplastic means.
Book Pricing
Their are hundreds of thousands of books available for the Kindle. Pricing runs the gamut for the various types of documents you can read on the Amazon Kindle. New release and best seller books can run around $10. Which can be quite a savings over the hard back version of the same book. You can find many books under $10 and you can even find books that are totally free. Want a monthly subscription to your favorite newspaper like the USA Today? You can get that for a monthly fee of $11.99. You can see there are big savings to be had by using the Kindle. If you don’t know if you want to buy a book you can preview it before you pay for it. Just like sitting in the book store and thumbing through the pages to see if you want to purchase it.
Ease Of Use
The most elegant feature of a physical book is that it literally disappears while you’re reading it. When you’re immersed in the world of the author, his ideas, thoughts and feelings, you don’t notice the cover of the book, or the stitching or the glue. These things disappear. The Amazon Kindle is an ebook device that achieves that same goal. It simply disappears so you can get lost in your reading and not the technology.
With all the advanced, yet simple features available on the Amazon Kindle, it is truly one device that is on our best gifts for Christmas list.
Here’s a video review of the Amazon Kindle.
Get the amazing Amazon Kindle today and check out the rest of my best gifts for Christmas at Best Gifts For Christmas.
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