A Very Brief Overview...

I find the kindle to be a fantastic device, and I see myself using it extensively for years to come. Never again will I be limited to carrying only one book with me. Instead, I can store hundreds in one small device.

The Review

Where to begin? I'll start off by saying that the kindle has gotten me reading more books than I ever had before, and I've always considered myself a voracious reader. One could argue that I could have simply dedicated more time to reading paper books, and they would be right, but what's missing is the ability to search the book for little things I want to reference after reading, or a half remembered paragraph.

As an example, with the kindle I can simply look up a definition for a word by using the Kindles build in dictionary. It's as simple as moving the cursor over the line of inquiry and selecting “lookup in the dictionary” from the menu; pretty easy, right? The kindle also sports a life time EV-DO Internet connection, which means I can look up information on sites like Wikipedia with ease.

Another great example of the kindle greatness is the auto-bookmarking feature, which automatically makes note of where you last stopped reading in every book contained on the device.

In addition, the kindle has a small feature that allows you to gauge your progress in any given book. You'll find a dotted line at the bottom of the screen which equates to the scrollbar found in all Internet browsers. It's pretty cool to see exactly how far along you are in any given book you're reading.

One of the best features of the kindle is its storage capacity. Out of the box it can hold roughly 200 books, and that space can be expanded many times over using its available SD memory slot. It’s so nice to have multiple books at your fingertips (as you have multiple tabs at your fingertips inside a browser); you can flip back and forth between completely different subject matter, all from a single, light device that automatically remembers where you left off the last time.

Now, all of those features are great, but they've got nothing on the Kindles expansive storage capacity. Out of the book the kindle can hold just shy of 200 books, with the ability to expand that capacity by many times with the use of an SD memory slot.

Lastly, the kindle allows a person to highlight certain passages and make notes and annotations along the way. All of these highlights, annotations, and books are fully search able.

All of these features amount to a greatly improved reading experience over paper books, which translates into more reading time for me.

Closing thoughts

To be perfectly honest, the kindle looks a little strange, like something a grandfather would find at a second hand store as a gift. Despite my initial impression, I found the design to be very well thought out and functional. I have only a few complaints about the kindle, and all of them are trivial and largely unimportant. I'm extremelly happy with my purchase and look forward to the next rendition of the product.