I just learned that the amazon kindle has dropped in price AGAIN! For those of you who have considered purchase, I love mine and this new price of $259 is a big discount from the original cost of $399. Here's a review I posted to amazon:
13 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars this techno-klutz loves her kindle 2, July 23, 2009
I am probably one of the least intuitive people around when it comes to technology. I've bought quite a few gadgets that have ended up collecting dust as I never really learned to use them properly. My short lived relationship with a Palm Pilot ended in frustration when I didn't learn how to back it up on my PC and all my carefully inputted data was lost (more than once!) My kids use it now for a doodle pad. My husband says I have a "black thumb" when it comes to anything electronic. If there is a way to break it, lose it, or misuse it, I'm right there doing it. This is why it is so astonishing that I have grown to love my kindle 2.
I learned how to use it easily within a few minutes. It is so intuitive- my four year old enjoys it and can page back and forth reading classics such as George MacDonald's The Princess and The Goblin or Mary Pope Osborne's The Magic Treehouse. My tween age son uses it for Shakespeare- I downloaded the First Folio (35 plays from the Bard) for all of 99 cents! It's quite a favorite amongst my children and I have recently learned that if more than one family member has a kindle, all e-books may be shared with a single purchase. My friend can even access her kindle books and magazines from her iphone!
Cool features include 6 different options for font size, and text markers by "location" to bring you to the same line of text whether you use the biggest or smallest of fonts, as page numbers would vary too much to be useful. A male or female voice can read to you, though the voices are a bit stiff and robotic, and they make small mistakes such as using alternate pronunciation that don't fit context with heteronyms such as read/read or live/live. You can connect speakers or earbuds/headphones for this feature. Magazines can be downloaded as a single issue or a subscription, but the subscriptions cannot be canceled from the kindle- the user must go to amazon's "Manage my kindle" area to do this.
I have downloaded quite a few classic books for free and spent about a dollar on many others. So far, the younger children's literature has been somewhat limited, but I imagine that as prices drop, more will become available. I am a bibliophile and I never thought I would love a paper book replacement, but this device is so clean and glare free that I forget I am not looking at a paper page.
I'm sure that color kindles will be available within a few years, to make the illustrations a bit more interesting. I love the beautiful pen and ink type renderings which fill the kindle 2 screen when it isn't in use. Obviously though, color would be more attractive with other types of art. Black and white is easiest on the eyes for text, and mostly that it what kindle is all about.
The kindle 2 holds a charge for a long time. I think I plug mine in about once every couple of weeks. If you are not careful with the five way button, sometimes you do end up getting the wrong result. I purchased a book accidentally this way, but amazon has a handy "did you purchase this by mistake?" option which permits you to cancel the order if you act right away.
I'm currently reading War and Peace on kindle, and I can't imagine how many pages of regular books it might be!
The one bummer is that kindle versions don't tend to have much for illustrations. What they do have, is black and white. So for picture books, you're better off with the real thing.
