My Kindle

Hiya!

A few weeks ago I got an email from Amazon offering a discount code for £20 off the basic Kindle, taking it down to £49. I'd had a Kindle in my wishlist on Amazon for about a year, so I guess they wanted to prompt me along. Fine by me! Hubby and I had been thinking about getting a tablet for us both to use, or some kind of e-reader for me, so this was too good an offer to resist, especially as it was time sensitive.


 It's a 6 inch black and white e-reader which can hold about 1400 books.


 It's so light - only 170g.


I've put about 60 books on it so far and have read for about half an hour a day or more almost every day since I've had it.


I bought a purple faux-leather case/stand and a reading light from eBay for £7.98 for both. It also comes in a few other colours.


Below is the case being used as a stand. Because of Fibromyalgia my grip is a problem not having to hold the Kindle constantly helps. It's actually light enough for me to be able to hold it and swap hands every few minutes to stop the awful cramp I get, but of course it's better if I don't have to hold it at all, except to turn the page. :) I only got back into reading because of CBT. It made me realise I need distraction techniques to stop me from worrying excessively. I think too much sometimes and having a diversion really helps keep my mood up.


The light I bought is actually too bright for me, and there was me worrying it'd be too dim. I use it to read in bed when hubby is asleep and it's so bright I wrap tissues around it or else I get a headache and it glares off the screen.


I also bought a mains charger from eBay for £1.98. It also doubles up as a phone charger (mini USB) suitable for most newer phones. It's got a really sturdy lead and an indicator light and is much nicer than the charger that comes with most phones. I was pleasantly surprised. On Amazon, Kindle accessories are a lot more expensive than on eBay. A similar charger was £12 on Amazon - so if you do buy a Kindle, do shop around for accessories. The Kindle charges by USB but I thought it can't hurt to have a mains charger as my USB ports are usually taken up charging my phone or uploading photos to my PC. One charge is supposed to last around a month averaging at half an hour's usage a day. I can't vouch for that as I haven't had it a month yet and some days I've read for a couple of hours.

So, what do I think of the Kindle? I love it! Having a huge amount of reading material in one place is brilliant. Having something I can put in my bag which weighs as much as a thin paperback is wonderful. I've taken it out with me a couple of times and it's a joy as I'm uber awkward and when I read, I forget to be a dork. 

Other than the old skool keyboard (left/right/up/down) it's pretty user friendly. You can change the font and font size easily. There are next page and previous page buttons to the left and right of the Kindle screen. When the screen is off, you get an image related in some way to books or writing - typewriter keys, fountain pens etc. Pretty nifty. There are loads of free or cheap books on Amazon - I have a mixture of bought books and some which were free, both classics and new books from less known authors. If you get followed by an up-and-coming author on Twitter they'll sometimes send you links to their Kindle books for free, which is nice. The biggest advantages about the Kindle for me are the chance to try lots of authors cheaply, and also the instantaneous transfer of books to my Kindle. It takes about 15 seconds over wifi and then I'm reading. Boom! It's fantastic. It totally looks like you're reading a book too. I was expecting the screen to be brighter than it is, but if it was it wouldn't be book-like. To all intents and purposes, you can forget you're not reading a real book.

I want to get my old favourite books for the Kindle. I've already donated a bin bag full of books to charity and will eventually get rid of almost of them, which will free up room for other things. *cough clothes cough*.

When Kindles first came out I was dead against them - I was a book purist. However, as my health got worse having a Kindle became increasingly more appealing. It's an early Christmas present from the hubby and one I'm sure I'll get constant enjoyment out of.

Have you got a Kindle or other kind of e-reader? Would you like one? Are you a book purist like I was?

Thanks for reading.

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