My father has ordered something for me for my birthday. He described it thusly:
“I ordered a gift for you that I think is the epitome of things you would order for yourself if you were aware of its existence. This product is so new the clerks in the electronics department at Sears had not (yet) even heard of it, but so suited to your lifestyle it can’t miss.”
I looked at the electronics available from Sears online, and they have hundreds of items. I have no idea what is new or not. The first thing I thought of was an electronic book reader, because he knows how much I love to read, but those aren’t particularly new and anyway you wouldn’t order them from Sears.
The thing is arriving in about a week, so in the meantime, feel free to speculate. It may end up revealing a great deal about what my father things of my lifestyle!
Roddy
OK, 99 people looked at this post, so for them, here is the answer: I guess he was being cute with the reference to Sears, or maybe that’s just where he started looking for it. Anyway, I was right, he sent me a Kindle.
It’s cool, so far. I’ve been thinking about buying one but I couldn’t see spending the money. Now I’ve got one. Woo hoo!
It’s just charging up and I have to learn how to use it. And I don’t think much of the stock carrying case, I’ll have to invest in a better one. But woo hoo!
That’s definitely a cool gift. I’ve been thinking about getting one, but the initial expense seemed a bit high, and I don’t know if I could get over reading without the quintessential paperiness of a bound book. Then again, I’ve lately gotten into reading some of the classics online through the Gutenberg Project, so maybe it’s something I’ll consider after all.
Have fun with your new Kindle, and let us know how awesome (or otherwise) it turns out to be!
I recently bought myself a Kindle. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to adjust to the tactile feel of a real book and turning pages, etc., and as I never enjoyed reading on a computer screen, I was afraid I wouldn’t adjust to reading from the Kindle screen. To my surprise, I really enjoy reading from the Kindle.
There’s also a lot of free material available, both public domain and otherwise. Some publishers (Tor, for instance) recently had a giveaway where their authors were encouraged to give away a book for a limited period of time, in an attempt to gain readership. I snagged about 20 free sci-fi books from them.
The device really holds a lot of stuff, and it will even play audio books. The built-in speaker is lousy, but it sounds good through headphones. It also automatically keeps your place in all books you are reading/listening to. It holds a charge for a really, really long time - I’m talking days and days, not hours. You will lose the charge quicker if you keep the wireless connection on but there’s no reason to keep the wireless connection on all the time. Playing audio books will also use up the charge faster, but not so fast that it will become an annoyance.
So far, I really don’t have any complaints about the Kindle itself. However, there is no wish list or shopping cart for Kindle books on Amazon.com. Each purchase is immediate and separate. On the Kindle itself, there is a wish list, but it’s tiresome browsing the store on the Kindle as all the online options just aren’t available. If Amazon would put a Kindle shopping cart on their site, things would be practically perfect for my needs.
