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Kindle Your Passion for Paris
What's a better way to travel France then tugging along extra guide books? Take along the Kindle.
New (and more to come) technology allows readers to download entire books and read a few pages when they have time. There are still a few glitches but they'll be resolved sooner than later. Many people become addicted within only a few hours. They curl up in lounge chairs and lose themselves in a world of reading. The size is very appropriate and travelers won't feel as if they're flittering away their time while in transit.
Fabulous Features:
* Wireless downloading of books - Look up a book, read a summary and/or a few reviews and then buy it instantly. This will cause some financial issues down the road because it is just so easy but it sure is a powerful feature. Entire books really do download in just a few seconds.
* Readability - The one-handed reading, the overall size of the reader, the crisp text and the variable font size all work together to make the experience while reading a real plus. The text font size can be increased or decreased with a push of the button.
* Subscription content can be delivered anytime including while sleeping. You can cancel subscriptions to newspapers and stay in bed and turn on the Kindle. Voila, you can read the morning papers without setting a foot outside.
* The Kindle can hold an incredible amount of content. Since the unit is the size of a basic paperback, you can slip one into your purse or briefcase. Whenever having to wait for more than a minute, get the unit out. It initially started up on the page last left, but with one click on the home button, you can access a multi-page list of available books and documents. This is great for readers who read five books at a time. Pick the one that interests you at the moment.
* Kindle NowNow - You pose a question and hit submit. Within a few minutes, you get several responses - for free sent to your Kindle. This is extremely helpful when away from a computer and you just need a quick answer. It's easier than Googling because you get three very good answers for every question asked.
Good Features:
* Battery Life - The battery life indicator goes up and down at various rates depending on whether you are actively using the wireless. Charge time is really quick - an hour or two at the most to get a full charge but you can still read for an entire evening on a very low indicator.
* Plays mp3 files - This feature needs some work. Currently, the files are played randomly, so you can't select specific music to play or use it for mp3 audio books and lectures. I put some instrumental mp3s on my SD card and it's nice to have background music when the mood strikes you.
* Subscriptions Revisited - You can still read a "real" newspaper. In the online versions of subscription content, you'll miss the extras such as photos, comics, puzzles, letters to editor and such. All of the articles are included, but the complete experience of a newspaper is not quite duplicated in online content - this is not only for the Kindle but also for web based news.
Missing or Negative Features (the reason for losing one star on this review) -
* Content - Don't expect to be able to download eBooks from local libraries (for free) and read them on your Kindle. Ditto when it comes to copying all types of text to the Kindle using either the SD card or the USB. There's a work-around for pdf files using the MobiPocket Creator. Also, some of the books are not (yet) available in the Kindle store yet. I have used email conversion and that worked.
Remember when it was rare when you saw people using IPods. Now, they're visible everywhere you look. Just wait. The same will be true with the Kindle. And you'll even be able to listen to language tapes.
