Digital Book Reader

 Introducing the Kindle Digital E-Book Reader

• Priced at a fair value
• Holds 1500+ titles
• Browse from over 300,000 titles
• Preview a book before you purchase
• Download a purchased book wirelessly in 60 seconds
• Get a backup file at Amazon automatically
• Carry many books in one device
• Energy effecient
• Has numerous cool accessories available

Digital E-Book Reader

This is an exciting time to be an avid reader. I have hundreds of books on my bookshelves at home just collecting dust. What if I wanted to re-read a book that I have already read? I have to go into the garage, find the book that I am looking for (which usually means taking all the books off the shelves), and then finally getting to read it. But, what if I could just scroll down a list to find the book while I sit comfortably on the couch? Ah, yes that would be fantastic.

Well now I can do just that. You may have already heard about the digital E-Book readers out there on the market. Though they have been around for almost two years, not many people know about them. The digital e-book reader is a simple portal for reading books. They are usually about the height of a pencil and about as thick as a magazine. You can take this digital e-book reader anywhere to read your favorite texts.

There are numerous types of content that can be read on these wonderful items. You could read of course books, but also magazines, and newspapers. If you wanted to read an issue of The New Yorker two issues back, well you could easily do that. Simply search for it on the wireless network of the digital e-book reader, find what you are looking for, and download it. In about 60 seconds you have the whole text ready for you to read.

Let’s say your favorite author just released a new book. You follow the same procedure as mentioned above and voila, there is your new book. If you have read everything from that author but want to read something else, you can search for new authors easily. You do not have to buy the whole book without knowing if you’ll like the contents. The digital e-book reader offers users a chance to freely download the first chapter of a book to preview the contents. If you like what you read downloading the rest is as simple as pushing a button.

Digital e-book readers offer a hard drive large enough to hold over 1500 titles on one simple platform. The digital e-book store also offers over 300,000 titles to choose from. The digital e-book reader I like best is the Kindle 2. It is a second generation digital e-book reader from Amazon. The Kindle 2 is equipped with a keyboard, a dictionary, and perfectly placed page turners. Whoever designed this technology was really smart. I may be wrong but I understand that the text of the e-book is designed to use zero power to stay on the screen. It has something to do with gray scale electronic ink, which is designed to give the page view a typical book feeling.

The Kindle offers a long lasting battery that (depending on use) could last for a couple weeks. This digital e-book reader would be a great addition to any technology gadget collection and for any book collection. Even though paper books have been great and easy to use for centuries and still are, the digital age is upon us. Think about all the forms of entertainment: music, movies, and books. Music and movies are digitized and now it’s the books turn.

The only drawback of the digital e-book is the formats of the books. Kindle can read many formats, mainly Mobipocket or text formats. The kindle can read audio books, HTML, and word documents. It cannot however, read PDF formats. The coolest feature I mentioned in passing at the beginning of this article is the ability to download books wirelessly. You may think that you would need to be in a “hotspot” to do this but you’d be wrong. Kindle uses a cellular data network called whisper net to deliver your content to your Kindle. This service is free of charge as a part of the Kindle package.

With thousands of new titles for 10 bucks each and older books for four to seven dollars each you can’t go wrong. Or can you?

You may be thinking that this device is like the IPod was when it came out. You had to download all your music to I tunes and convert the format. If you lost your music then you were out a lot of money. Well rest assured this won’t happen with the digital e-book reader. When you purchase a book title you get it downloaded to your Kindle within 60 seconds. You also get a free back up on Amazon.com. For less than the cost of a hardcover novel you can have a digital version and a “forever” back up on the internet. You can save trees too.

There are two things that I am. One, I am an avid reader who often gets lost in a story; two, I am an American soldier who has deployed to Iraq three times. Each time I deployed I brought ten or more books with me and usually ended up mailing home over twenty books and carrying home at least two. Now with this wonderful technology I can probably carry every single book I have ever read in one simple, updateable, lightweight, energy efficient portal. With a price of 300 dollars this is a great deal. Think about it this way, a PS2 cost 400 or more, an Xbox 360 costs 300 dollars. So why not get a device for the same price that will actually make you smarter.

Recently, Amazon added some features to their ever popular Kindle 2 digital e-book reader.  Some of the important updates are an extended battery life, which adds an approximate 85% increase to the run time of the Kindle.  Additionally, Amazon updated the software on the Kindle to allow PDF formats to be read.  You can now transfer, and read PDF on the Kindle 2.  Another great addition to the Kindle is now they can download content internationally using a 3G network. 

I would now have to say that there is absolutely no reason not to purchase this device for the book lover in your family.  Every issue has been worked out, and if you own a version that doesn't have these updates, you may be able to get Amazon to update them.