<p>I put the Sunday NYT on the Kindle and read it all week long at lunch. One of my favorite features is “Save for Later.” You find a book you might want to read, but not right now, and keep it in your Save for Later. Then at the library or in the middle of the night when you finish whatever you were reading you pull up your Save for Later list and get a new read. Works much better than little pieces of envelopes and ads pulled out of the paper. And why is a Kindle considered an extravagance? Hardly anyone labels an iPod or a blackberry an extravagance.</p>
<p>mom2010,</p>
<p>Forgot about my Blackberry, but that wouldn’t make the list either. I rarely take it out of the car. I guess my car’s GPS would be #5.</p>
<p>Kindle is a real “readers” device. You can be reading multiple books and return to the last page read in each one. I also love the dictionary feature: highlight a word, and it opens the dictionary to give you the definition. Are you excited yet?</p>
<p>I’m not sure about the optics, but I’m thinking the lack of backlight is also part of why the Kindle quite readable in bright sunlight.</p>
<p>Over spring break this year, I was at the pool with my kids, and I had a couple of books on my kindle, but I hadn’t really bothered to get any “beach reading.” When the kids get into what they were doing, I switched it on and bought a book. When I first got this as a christmas gift, I thought I would NEVER get over not holding a book and underlining and annotating, then late one night when I couldn’t sleep, I switched it on and bought a new book at 3am. At that point I was a convert! I understand a couple of universities are piloting a textbook program on the Kindle this year. The lightweight quality and ability to hold so many books would be fantasitc for the backs of all of our students! I expected it to have a backlight, too, though. :(</p>
<p>audiophile - I don’t have a blackberry or a GPS (we live in a smallish city that is quite easy to navigate with a little help from mapquest). I do think I may get my sons GPS when they take a car to college (especially if they are in a large city). Maybe the dictionary feature on the Kindle will help me expand my aresenal of words for my frequent Scrabble battles with my husband. He willl challenge me on a word because he doesn’t know it and I’ll pull out my Kindle to prove it.</p>
<p>And yes I am very excited! I told my husband this morning that it feels like Christmas.</p>
<p>mafool - I agree with you regarding the backlight and reading the Kindle outside. Hopefully you can read it just fine with sunglasses on.</p>
<p>yes, you can, mom2010.</p>
<p>poetgirl - I was just thinking this morning about how nice it would be for college students to get textbooks on a Kindle. I remember back in the dark ages when you needed a book for class and the bookstore didn’t have it (there was no Amazon to order it from). Sometimes it would be several weeks into the semester before you could get your hands on a textbook. With the Kindle you could have it instantaneously.</p>
<p>I have the original version.</p>
<p>Cons: Yes, it needs a backlight. Yes, it needs a longer battery life. It also needs a better dictionary for the “look up” function. Next page buttons are too easy to push while holding (I note this has been fixed with the latest edition.) Not knowing when the chapter ends. </p>
<p>Pros: Electronic highlighter. Search function. Mostly, that it keeps a running list of everything I have recently read.</p>
<p>Love it…for many reasons…just so you all know (if you don’t already) that it also gives you internet access if need be; we were out of commission for the last few days and it was extremely helpful to be able to quickly pull up an online newswire…had no idea about the internet when I purchased it (and if I hadn’t read through the guide, I still wouldn’t know)</p>
<p>also, agree with cpeltz; great sampling feature…</p>
<p>I think the sampling feature will be a huge benefit. I am a person that does not feel compelled to finish a book if I am not enjoying it (which is one of the reasons I get books from the library). I generally know after a couple of chapters whether I want to invest any more time in the book or not.</p>
<p>Okay, one last thing which is pretty cool. H works out of town a lot and he has a kindle, too. But, on the Amazon site, if you are together, you can share books. So, the other night I was raving about Cutting For Stone and he was able to start reading it as soon as we hung up the phone. very cool.</p>
<p>I have a friend who absolutely loves her Kindle. Because of the font change feature, she reads much faster now - no more re-reading or skipping lines (which often happens when reading a small font book). </p>
<p>For those of you who have a Kindle - can you say more about the wireless Internet feature? I noticed it is 3G with no monthly fees (!). If you use internet-based email like hotmail or gmail, then can you just access your email from your Kindle pretty seamlessly?</p>
<p>The reason I’m asking is that I was thinking of upgrading my “dumbphone” to a smartphone, mainly for the 3G wireless, but if Kindle provides good enough email access, maybe I can still get by with a dumbphone.</p>
<p>I am so tempted to buy a Kindle since I’m a confessed biobliophile. I’m trying to justify the cost and the price per book. I live just a couple blocks from a library where I can get just about any book I want for free. If my branch doesn’t have the book, I can order it online and get it within a couple days. Convince me a Kindle is worth it.</p>
<p>Poetgirl, can you explain how you can share with your husband’s Kindle. If you bought a book, does that mean he can read it too because you have a joint account?</p>
<p>suzikimom, I don’t think I’ll try to convince you, though I do like my Kindle. My situation is that my work hours and commute make trips to the library (while it is open) difficult, so the Kindle made some kind of extravagant sense. The one benefit I will mention is weight and size. I used to travel with at least 3 books. Now I have one slim device in my purse or briefcase.</p>
<p>Bought my sister a Kindle for her birthday this year. [She’s been a very good girl!] She says it’s the best present she’s gotten from me in 50 years…</p>
<p>I might have missed this “up thread”–if so, sorry to repeat a question: Does the Kindle have a keyword search function that you can use when reading a book? Sometimes, I’ll be halfway through a long novel, and I’ll want to look back to a particular description or snippet of dialogue, but it takes me quite awhile to find the spot in the book. I would love a feature like that.</p>
<p>generally, how much do books cost to download?</p>
<p>re:the above post on the Kindle and the email vs. smart phone. I would get the smartphone and get one like the iphone that has the kindle application. Now that the new gen iphone is out the older gen version is relatively inexpensive. I find the email on the kindle is clunky.</p>
<p>The cost ranges. I just got the Kindle DX last week. I’ve downloaded 8 books. 2 were $9.99. New hardback releases were around $14.95. The other 6 I got were free. I don’t know why some are free and others are not.</p>
<p>Thanks, ebeeeee, for the info on the Kindle email. IPhone it is! </p>
<p>(I kinda already bought it today…) :)</p>