Well it took me less than a day to be converted. My Kindle 3 is the same weight as my iPhone. A few grams are added with the pretty green pouch, but all in all it is lighter and thinner than your average novel, which makes it easy to carry. The text is exceptionally clear and it is so easy to use. I love that I can make notes and comment within the books I read. It is particularly useful when I read something for research purposes.
I have one big issue though. And this is not with Amazon as such, but with ebooks in general. I am all for copyright, I’m a writer after all. But when I buy a book I want to be able to take it with me wherever I go. Reading is a relaxing past time, not something that you do behind your computer at your desk.
So therefore I try to avoid buying encrypted books, not because I want to cheat the author or publisher out of money, but I just want to read my book where and when I please.
It’s like buying a frying pan that can only be used on one plate on your stove top. AND you cannot take it with you when you move house or buy a new stove. Honestly. It sucks!
What sucks more though is when a store doesn’t tell me clearly that the book I’m buying is encrypted and can only be read on the device that I’ve used for the purchase. I’ve just spent £30 on new ebooks which gave me an option of ePub or PDF format. Nothing about encryption was mentioned anywhere on the PDF version.
My new Kindle converts PDFs so I figured I’m safe right? But when I tried to download them onto my Kindle I got the message loud and clear: SORRY YOU IDIOT you've just spent £30 at Kalahari.net on books that you can only read at your desk.
I guess I'll have to educate myself a bit more so that I won't make that mistake again.
