The Amazon Kindle

The kindle from the front in stand by

For Christmas I got an Amazon Kindle, one of the knew ones which when on offer only cost £60 and now allows me to carry lots of books around with me at once and means I can empty the book shelves and clear out lots of space for the upcoming baby which will undoubtedly take up a lot of space so the Kindle is certainly useful in that respect. 

I have to say that I did feel some trepidation in getting a Kindle, as with many people I like the feel of the book in my hand and the speed at which the pages turn. However I can say that all of these worries were ill-founded, the as if anything this is more comfortable to hold in one hand and you can turn pages when it is held in one hand  which I can't do with a normal book, the page turns are quick enough to not hinder reading and reading from this device is no more of a strain on your eyes than reading from a book. Though I guess I should also note that it is worth checking that you can actually read from these devices as my wife could not focus on the black but only the grey background and 

 

I have to admit that I have also found navigating the system very easy, the buttons on the front (shown below) are all that you need to get around, the one on the left is back, the second left brings up the keyboard (typing is not as hard as you would expect) the middle one then moves up, down, left, right and the centre bit is enter.On the middle right you have the menu button and then on the far right you have the home button and also on the sides you can turn pages and once you get used to the fact that it is not a case of left back and right forward but bottom forward and top back it is fine.

The navigation system.

I have to admit to not having used the store at all as I have downloaded all of my books on a PC and then added them to the Kindle rather than use the Kindle but I had no problems connecting to the wireless network and then putting it into non-wireless mode to save battery life, speaking of which it does last a long time although not 4 weeks but this might be because I am a quick reading and so I am doing lots of page turns. This leads nicely to me saying that I do not feel that the device or the speed of the page turns is slow (see video below) and I have been easily reading James Patterson books in a day or 2.

Overall I have found that the Kindle is a great product for me but some people may not be able to use it so check first, it saves space and money and means I can keep all of my books with me at once! Be aware though that they can break going through airport scanners which is a problem that my Dad has had with his.