On my way home from work one day, a woman sitting next to me most apologetically interrupted my reading to ask me about the Kindle. She’d never seen one, and she didn’t know much about the ebook readers on the market, but she was completely on board with the idea of carrying a stack of books in one lightweight device, to say nothing of the integration between book browsing and book buying using the wireless connection.
Of course, and I do grit my teeth when I write this, the Kindle is now available for $359, which makes it a tad more attractive, though I don’t think it’ll really take off in terms of ubiquity until it goes below $300, or even $250, if that ever happens. Meanwhile, I’m trying not to think of all the things I could have purchased with that $40 extra. Amazon, I am giving you a finger. Guess which one. My fellow commuter is probably buying one, because she completely agreed with me about how crap it is to run out of reading on the bus ride home. Invariably, it’s the day you get stuck in traffic for an hour.
If you’re still wondering about the Kindle, and its potential uses as a reading device, read on. Thanks to Jill F., who sent me a link, you can check out NPR’s Lynn Neary as she reports on how the Kindle holds up on the beach and at the pool. It’s relatively durable, sayeth the experts, compared to, say, a cell phone. But don’t toss it in the water, for God’s sake. I know of one Kindle-Aid drinker who puts hers in a clear Ziploc bag for trips to dangerous locations where there may be sunscreen, sand, and water. Low-tech is often best, especially since the included Kindle-case blows Chunkys.
I’m going to be road tripping next weekend – fun fun fun in West Virginia (no, seriously, I love West Virginia) – and the Kindle shall be coming with me. This may be the first vacation where I am guaranteed not to run out of things to read (which has happened before, and yea, it doth blow Chunky as well) but there’s no way in hell I’m bringing it near a pool, not without two Ziplocs, minimum.
Hubby takes his everywhere too. When they are travelling for work, it gets passed around the vehicle. They all love it.
Becky – In the time that I have owned the Kindle I have saved $61.54. I bought it in May right before they loered the price, they were very good about giving me the credit when I called about the price change.
I also love my Kindle. Between the samples and the buy it now – it is truly the new addiction of choice. However, my TBR is also not diminishing. I sold dh on the whole “I won’t buy as many books”, but I’m not as good as I intended to be.
For those that worry about water-proofness, I can attest that it is not at all good for that. As I was preparing for surgery in January, I knocked some chicken broth on my Kindle and fried it. Unfortunately I had bought the Kindle specifically for the hospital stay – so the timing sucked.
Amazon was wonderful and replaced my Kindle (at no charge) because at that time, they had not ironed out all of the replacement details. I was completely honest with them as to what happened – and was calling to see if it was fixable.
Since that incident, I’ve told this story many times – and I refuse to bitch about the lowered price, because I definitely have gotten my money’s worth!
However, I did buy the Waterfield Kindle case to make it more portable. The case that comes with it is a joke!
I looked at both the MEdge and Waterfield cases – and ultimately decided to go with the Waterfield Sleeve case. (http://www.sfbags.com/products/kindle/kindlecase.htm).
There is a great discussion about the various Kindle cases on this forum: (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20244)
Hope this helps you all invest more in our economy! 😉
Jen Z.