Bookworm

I've always been a bookworm. As a child, I was one of those that used to take a torch to bed so I could read under sheets. I used to go to the library and draw out a couple of books and read through them in a matter of hours.

Even now, I have large personal store of books. At the last count well over 700; a mixture of hard back and paper back. About 150 of these are technical reference books for various things or books for my studies.

When the concept of the ebook reader was first publicised, I was quite keen to see one. I thought that the concept was good and could see real value in it; but I wasn't quite so sure about the price. I've been hoping that some kind person would buy me one for a present (yeah right!) or that I might win one in some prize draw. But sadly, no such luck.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I decided that it was time for me to get one for myself. I had a number of Amazon vouchers which were from various sources, and I decided that I could trade these in as part payment on a Kindle. I bought one and a small leather wallet to keep it in. I also downloaded the software and got a number of free ebooks from the Amazon site.

The Kindle turned up just over a week ago, and I've been playing with it ever since. It is so good! The text is really easy to read even in strong light; I don't need to change the font size although that is an option. I had a couple of issues getting in synched through the wireless, but that was down to me typing the encryption key in wrong. Once I got correct, the device connected and updated everything straight away.

I've already gone through a number of books, and really enjoyed using the device. I don't think that I'm going to have a problem as it is supposed to hold about 3500 titles. At the moment, I've got some 2 dozen books stored; that should be enough for me to take on holiday in a couple of weeks.

The alpha numeric buttons are a bit on the small size, but as I don't use them that much, I don't see that as an issue. There are a couple of big buttons on the side to change pages and they are quite firm to use. The only real criticism is the silly button with the tiny square around it for the selection / entry; I'm sure that they could have designed something a bit more solid.

The Kindle also gives the option to have newspaper and magazine on the device; as you have to pay for those, I'm not so keen on the idea. But there is a particular magazine which I might sign up for, just to try it out. At 99p per month, I think that I can afford it. It's also supposed to allow you to read certain other types of files, but I haven't tried that yet.

As you can tell, I think that this is a great little device. I'm really pleased that I bought it, and I think it's well worth the money.