![The Amazon Kindle isn’t for the Illiterate [Review] Tech Reviews kindle Books/Comics amazon](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/417XQ0XwQuL._SL300_.jpg "The Amazon Kindle isn’t for the Illiterate [Review]")
I’ve had the Wireless Amazon Kindle 3 for about 6 months now, thanks to a great Christmas gift from my parents.
Over time, I’ve read some discussions whether the Kindle will kill the print industry, whether it will increase reading overall – from my point of view, I think it will certainly cut into the print industry, but I am not sure about increasing reading overall because reading isn’t for the illiterate.
I don’t say that to mock illiterate people, but to state that if you want to read, the Kindle can make things much easier for you to do so. It’s an enabler.
But if you don’t have a natural interest in reading, it’s not going to convert you, and this is no reflection on one’s education. Take my friend Jin, for example. Very intelligent, very successful, but perhaps reads 1 book per year. He’s got an iPad, could certainly afford a Kindle, but his reading habits haven’t changed at all.
For me, however, here’s a list of books that I’ve read on the Kindle in the last 6 months alone.
- Born to Run
- Chocolate Fortunes: The Battle for the Hearts, Minds, and Wallets of China’s Consumers
- The Hunger Games
- Mockingjay
- Catching Fire
- Outliers
- Superfreakonomics
- The Blind Side
- The Big Short
- A Band of Misfits
- Mint Condition
- Casino Royale
- Sherlock Holmes Illustrated (35%)
- Collected Stories of Phillip Dick, v1
- Collected Stories of Phillip Dick, v2
- Collected Stories of Phillip Dick, v3 (50%)
- Ubik
15+ books in 6 months. To me, that’s impressive as I don’t think I’d read that many books in the last 5 years before the Kindle.
Before the Kindle, I wouldn’t have said I was a big reader. Part of it was cost, part of it was convenience. I read a lot as a child, but as I grew older, I just got out of it. I’d occasionally pickup some books from the library, but I was never a book lover, someone who loves visiting the bookstore and seeing what’s new. Since coming to in Vietnam, it wasn’t easy to read a book that interested me considering the overall scarcity of English-language books here, and their prohibitive premium cost. Sometimes, books could be found online and printed locally, but overall, that wasn’t a convenient process.
With the Kindle, I’ve gotten in the habit of reading again. The Kindle excels at convenience and a big part of this is the long-term battery. I don’t think I can quite use it for a month as Amazon claims, but I can bring it with me anywhere, for any type of trip, and never have to worry about bringing a charger. In that sense, I treat it like a book, I never have to worry about it. It’s hard to understand what that feels like until you’re actually using it, to not consider it an electronic device. With my other electronic devices – laptop, music player, mobile phone, Nintendo 3DS, I always have to remind myself about the respective battery life and being conservative with their use.
Getting new books is simple, and I get hooked on the quick conversion. As soon as I see something interesting, I can purchase a book via the website or the Kindle’s store browser over wireless, start reading it in a minute. I’ve also loaded books via the USB connection, but it’s not the same. There’s something about having no barriers, no manual process to start reading that makes the Kindle special, and again creates a different type of accessibility. I just see it as different from other electronic devices.
Some final notes about the Kindle itself:
E-Ink truly is as claimed: easy on the eyes. No monitor glare, no concerns about tiring your eyes. I just pick it up and read. I can pickup and read 10 minutes at time and never have to worry about wearing out a book spine. I can switch books when I need a break, and yet I’ll never need to add weight to my bag or have a bookcase at home.
The user interface and keyboard for non-reading features is not the best nor the quickest, but it works well enough. The inline dictionary (highlight a word on the page, and the definition will appear immediately on the same page), while I don’t use it as much as I should (I am an idiot), is certainly a paper-dictionary killer, vocabulary booster, illiterateness killer.
The Kindle is an amazing product, but it’s not a general use tool like the iPad. If you can imagine enjoying books on a frequent level, I think you’ll enjoy the Kindle and find its cost worthwhile over the long term.
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Very astute observations! I’m still going to stick to my San Francisco Public Library, though. I don’t like the idea of owning things, even if it’s digital content. However, I absolutely appreciate my Kindle app on the Android and the free classics I can read. Yay!
Double yay! How’s reading on a phone? It always seemed like it might get tiring to read longer form writing that way.
i had the iphone and it was nice but the kindle is amazing, especially when i travel to places where there is no electricity, which is half the time in congo. i was deciding amongst the kindle, ereader, and nook, then decided on the kindle. good choice, thus far.
Nice to hear that Lam!