Kindle The eBook Reader

Do you like to read? How many books you bring along when travel?

I dislike paper books and think it's waste of weight allowance (and go green), so I never bring any paper books but e-books on lappy or phone when travel. But these days there are better gadgets such as tablet and ebook reader that let you bring not one but many books with you when travel. The Amazon's Kindle is one of the best selling ebook readers...

The Kindle Wifi and its lighted cover.

Don't get wrong, that is not a stick on guide on the screen, it's the actual e-ink display on the screen, no difference when it's powered on...

It looks simple just like a paper printout and very light to hold. If you try this and any tablet like iPad reading the same content for a long time, you likely would buy my idea that the e-ink display is friendlier to the eyes and the weight is comfortable to hold in the hand.

Move to the bottom...

Up/down switch, a headphone jack, USB for data transfer and charging and power switch.

Kindle comes with TTS Text-To-Speech feature that it can read out the e-books for you. I only try English, no Chinese and unsure if it's capable for other languages. Good feature for physically challenged users.

What about the cover?

Leather built; a string to hold the lids tight when close. Well cushioned on the inside and 2 gold conductive hooks that lock the Kindle in place in the cover as well as to power up the LED light...

The pullout LED light for reading in the dark. No battery needed but drawing charge from Kindle.

Put the Kindle on, pull out the light and it lights up automatically...

A bit bluish in bright area. Let's try it in the dark...

Looks natural. Should be good for reading in dark cabin when travel.

That's all on the hardware. On the soft side, it supports quite a number of file formats, or you can easily google Kindle converter to get the software to convert the source to ebook format.

Overall, I'm impressed with it even though read book is not my habit nor hobby. Too bad currently there is no color version of Kindle, which likely I will get one for my IT magazines. But if you are a book worm, you should consider getting one.

p/s: this unit is a gift to a friend.