E-books and e-book readers have been around for a few years now. And whilst there has been a lot of hype around them, they have always remained exactly that. Hype. The primary issues with e-book readers have been 3. The first was the ease of usage. And the 2nd the availability of the books. And the most important, the costs.
A couple of months ago, during a trip to the US, I noticed that e-book readers were in fashion. Whether it was the airport, or in the metro or at coffee shops, a significant number of people seemed to be reading e-books. And I concluded that e-book readers must now really be good.
A quick search showed that Amazon’s latest Kindle was being well received and had decent reviews. I had checked out the original version and it kind of sucked. Too big, too thick. And too expensive. But this time I was pleasantly surprised. Amazon seemed to have taken the exact cribs I had and recreated the Kindle, just for me. And possibly the million others who had the exact same cribs. What’s more the $139 price tag, made it affordable. And so I got a Kindle. As a present for Freia. Who loved reading books.
It’s really very nice. The navigation is straight forward. And its very intuitive. Read a book. And the next time you open that book, it opens on the page where you left. The last few books you are currently reading show up on the home page, and you click and are ready to start reading. The lettering is B&W and crisp. Beautiful print, that is as readable as any physical book. No reflection, no glare. And of course, you can even change the font size.
My younger daughter Reia is not a great book fan. Until I found a cool feature that might make her like, if not love books. A book reader. Yes, it has a feature where the Kindle will read the book for you. In a male or female voice of choice. And the voice quality is awesome. Not at all a typical synthetic machine voice. I’m pretty curious to find out how they’ve managed it.
The cost of books is still a little steep. ($2). But the nice part is that there are enough free books available. And their collection is pretty good. Which I suspect will grow bigger and better. The only real difference I found between real books and the Kindle is that you can’t share books at the same time. But then, hopefully prices will drop even further and each of us can have our own.
A couple of months ago, during a trip to the US, I noticed that e-book readers were in fashion. Whether it was the airport, or in the metro or at coffee shops, a significant number of people seemed to be reading e-books. And I concluded that e-book readers must now really be good.
A quick search showed that Amazon’s latest Kindle was being well received and had decent reviews. I had checked out the original version and it kind of sucked. Too big, too thick. And too expensive. But this time I was pleasantly surprised. Amazon seemed to have taken the exact cribs I had and recreated the Kindle, just for me. And possibly the million others who had the exact same cribs. What’s more the $139 price tag, made it affordable. And so I got a Kindle. As a present for Freia. Who loved reading books.
It’s really very nice. The navigation is straight forward. And its very intuitive. Read a book. And the next time you open that book, it opens on the page where you left. The last few books you are currently reading show up on the home page, and you click and are ready to start reading. The lettering is B&W and crisp. Beautiful print, that is as readable as any physical book. No reflection, no glare. And of course, you can even change the font size.
My younger daughter Reia is not a great book fan. Until I found a cool feature that might make her like, if not love books. A book reader. Yes, it has a feature where the Kindle will read the book for you. In a male or female voice of choice. And the voice quality is awesome. Not at all a typical synthetic machine voice. I’m pretty curious to find out how they’ve managed it.
The cost of books is still a little steep. ($2). But the nice part is that there are enough free books available. And their collection is pretty good. Which I suspect will grow bigger and better. The only real difference I found between real books and the Kindle is that you can’t share books at the same time. But then, hopefully prices will drop even further and each of us can have our own.
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