Gio

So, what's these bl@@dy Kindles like? I hear that small pages with not much. Good for travelling I suppose...

TestaRossa

My OH has had one 6 months now and loves it. You can also share your library with any PC's, Macs, I-pods/phones and Android devices. No colour, no back light but the screen is the size of a regular paperback. And yes, great for travelling which he does a lot. The battery life is several months.....

Mitzyboy

The wife thinks hers is wonderful.
The page is normal book size and you can change the print size to what you want

You can also browse the internet with it, although we havent tried that yet. Good in sunlight also, which was a problem with the original Kindle apparently

Isakat

Our 10 year old got a Kindle for Christmas. She is a book worm and we used to buy loads of books for her. She uses the Kindle on the school bus to alleviate boredom, since it takes her an hour to get to school and same back.
She was asking yesterday for more downloads as she has read the ones that we bought for Christmas.
She has not tried any other options as reading books is what she is after.It was absolutely the best present for her.

internationalbefky

I got the new Kindle with 3G for my birthday recently. I love it - looks like a book page, you can read it in the sunlight, it's lighter to carry compared to a paperback, and I currently have enough free literature to last me until Easter (assuming I find the time to read!). And I can store those forever in my archive - none of that having to pay for a file everytime a virus/computer illiterate/bottle of pop destroys your hard drive. I own the books the same as I would in the real world.
I think the only real drawbacks are the restriction to Kindle format (i.e. you can only buy from the Amazon Kindle store, although I'm sure some hacker out there will be working hard to fix that for us ) and the prices of current books are too high considering the costs of producing and distributing Kindle formatted books are much less than those associated with "real" books.
I would definitely recommend getting one if you travel a lot or have been forced to leave your library behind by annoying baggage allowance limits

DaniL

My husband got himself one for Christmas and loves it. There are about 5000 free books on amazon that he's working through. Also, if you use azureus vuze (or some similar torrenty program) you can get loads of free books off that. He got about 200 from there the other day. Obviously the leagality of that is questionable, if that kind of thing bothers you. A little thing like that won't keep my hubby away from a freebie!

durobird

Excuse my ignorance...but does it matter if you buy it in the UK or in Italy? If I bought it in Italy...could I still get the free books from Amazon? Not very techno minded so would like some help!!!

Mitzyboy

Your kindle is automatically registered to an amazon site when you buy it. I bought mine in Spain on the UK site and it registered it to dot com. On the .com site you dont get the same choice of books.

You simply just go into "your kindle" on the amazon site and change it to the uk site. Thats what we did

dina1965

I was wondering the same thing as Durobird. The USD price (.com) is more convenient than the GBP (.UK) price when converted to EURO. GBP 111 against USD 139 (about EUR 30 difference) .... or does the fact that I have no UK address/UK credit card mean I have to order on the .com site anyway ?

Mitzyboy

It may be more convenient, but as I said (when I researched it) the choice was not so good on the US one. I've had Spanish and UK cards registered on amazon, so I dont think it matters

fatbrit

Send him here: http://calibre-ebook.com/

Then you can manage your whole library easily and use other sources.

It's free and open source....as all the best software is.

dina1965

silly question probably but ....
I'm about to order my kindle from the .com site - do I need to order the power adaptor ... ?

dina1965

should I opt for a cover with an incorporated light or buy the items separately - is the light useful ?

Mitzyboy

Power adaptor? You can charge your kindle with the equipment that comes with it, and the battery has a very long life

Well, are you going to be reading in the dark?
It has no backlight, but the wife says it doesnt bother her at all.

dina1965

[QUOTE=Mitzyboy;9144357]Power adaptor? You can charge your kindle with the equipment that comes with it, and the battery has a very long life

I thought my Kindle would come with a US plug and I'd need an adaptor with an EU plug to charge it here in Italy. Isn't it like a cell phone ?
Thanks for the light info - in the meantime I've found out that the .com site won't ship one to Italy anyway !!