Amazon Kindle 2nd Generation

EBook readers are the future of books. They offer a solution to carrying around heavy paperbacks and offer the flexibility of downloading new books from almost anywhere (home, work, coffee shop, beach etc! A great solution for people that live in a town with no bookstore - like me!). Now before I go any further I will explain what an eBook and eBook reader are for those who aren't aware (the rest of you can continue reading down further):

An eBook is an electronic book. As its names suggests you will require an electronic device to read an electronic book. This can be a computer, iPhone or other smartphone, iPad or tablet PC or a dedicated eBook reader.

A dedicated eBook reader generally has an eInk screen, basically a type of electronic paper, that uses a very small electric current to "write" on the page. It uses very little power meaning your eBook reader has a long battery life. And it is just like reading a book - the display looks like paper, there is no glare that you may find on computer or phone screens and there is no back light so you won't strain your eyes from reading a lit up screen for a long period.

Now I had known about eBooks for a while after discovering various iPhone apps offering the ability to read books on your phone. "Awesome" I thought, but after a while you tend to strain your eyes reading on such a small back-lit screen, so I started looking into the eBook readers. I did a lot of research into the eBook readers available at the time (and there were quite a few) I started reading user reviews (like this one!) to see what people thought first hand. The other readers I was looking at had good and bad reviews - they all had their ups and downs. The Kindle came out on top of the user reviews I read so I looked into purchasing it.

I thought I would check out eBay first to see if I could get a Kindle in Australia at a reasonable price. I managed to score a second-hand one that hadn't had much use (the iPad had just been released and a lot of eBook fans were making the switch to the iPad with it's big flashy colour screen). So I received my first Kindle in the post a few days after ordering, and it was everything I thought it would be. It was easy to sign up for an Amazon account and I started looking for through the thousands of free books they had on offer (yes that's right I said FREE - one of the reasons I decided to get a Kindle over some of the other readers was the sheer number of eBooks they have available including 1.8 million eBooks available for FREE!!). In addition to the free books they had on offer Amazon offer best sellers at a fraction of the cost you can expect to pay for a paperback.

I found downloading and syncing purchases really easy. I was also able to sync my purchases across devices, i.e. I had the Kindle Reading App on my iPhone and PC and could sync my purchases through the three very easily (I have also since purchased another Kindle for my mum and have that on the same account so that we can share books between us). The Kindle is a very responsive device, page turns are quickly updated (compared with some other model readers I looked at) and the screen contrast was very good - making it easier to read. You can also ready PDF files on the Kindle which was an advantage to me as a lot of the files I use for work are in PDF format. The only downfall that really affected me with this device was it's inability to have additional media storage like and SD card, but the internal storage of the Kindle is capable of holding thousands of books so this was a big let down. The 2nd generation Kindle (the one pictured above) is lightweight, thin and has a long battery life - if you are reading most days you can still expect to get almost 2 weeks out of the device (more if you turn the wireless capabilities off while you don't need it).  It is easy to hold and the buttons are placed in convenient locations for turning the page.

I absolutely adore my Kindle, I thought I would have to suffer the delays of getting new books when I moved to a town with no bookshop but Kindle provided the solution. I loved it so much that I went ahead and bought a 3rd generation Kindle when it was released (the review on the new model is coming soon) - and with the high Aussie Dollar at the moment it was very good value ordering directly from the Amazon website (there is a link on the left side of the page if you are interested in getting one yourself!). This device is one of my top recommendations to anyone who loves to read!



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