My latest toy just arrived – the Amazon Kindle. I have to say I absolutely love it. It’s an electronic book reader available through Amazon.
The cool feature is that is has built in wireless that allows you to search the Amazon site and download books. The wireless is free, but of course the books are not. Details here:
Kindle Wireless Reading Device (6″ Display, U.S. Wireless)
The positives:
- The wireless internet works really well. It comes preconfigured so there is no messing about when you get it. All you need is to be in an area with a signal and it is working.
- Buying and downloading books takes about a minute. Really easy. It’s set up to work with your existing Amazon ‘one-click’ account settings.
- The unit is light and a good size for reading in bed or while travelling.
- Battery life is good – about the same as a mobile phone. It charges with a USB.
- There is a large range of investment books available on the Kindle. Plus you can set it up to automatically download the Wall Street Journal, Investor Business Daily and other newspapers and magazines.
- You can email or PC sync other documents such as Word or PDF.
The negatives:
- I’ve now been on two different flights with it and each time the person next to me has asked me about it and wanted to have a good look. So until they become more popular, don’t expect privacy.
- There is also an issue with books that are heavy on graphics. Some of the formatting is a little messed up. That said, it’s not a major issue and you can read around it. The PDF display is not perfect, but they are apparently working on it.
This is not really a trading topic. I just felt like writing about it…
