Why I Love My Baby Kindle
February 13, 2012, By Craig J. Heimbuch 0 comments
First things first: I love my Apple products. I can't function without my iPhone, was an early adapter to the iPad 2 and just finished writing a book on my MacBook Pro, the same one I use every day for work. This isn't about holding the Kindle above the IOS products. This is about taking the Kindle on its own merit.
And there is a lot of merit.
I got the baby Kindle for Christmas, the one that runs $79, does not have a touch screen and literally fits in my back pocket. My in-laws were looking for a last-minute gift for me, and my wife recommended it. I'm so glad that she did.
A lot of people are deriding the user experience of the new stripped-down Kindle, and they make some valid points. The keyboard function is annoying, the five-way directional pad is small and the electronic ink screen lags a bit when you turn the page. But if these are the biggest complaints, they are all things I can deal with. Here's what I love about it:
Storage
This little thing, which weighs less than a cup of coffee, can hold 1,400 books. As a guy who carries around a few magazines, a book or two, a laptop, notebooks and pens where ever he goes, the idea of having so much of the heavy stuff at my fingertips without slipping a disc is pretty awesome.
Battery Life
I got my Kindle for Christmas and have charged it exactly once since I opened the box. I've read four books, newspapers, blogs and magazines. I read it pretty much every day, and I don't even think about the battery. Try that on an iPad.
Subscriptions
I paid for my local newspaper for entirely too long. Part of it was nostalgia for my days as a reporter, part was the thought that I needed to support local media. But half the Sunday papers showed up soaking wet or were left in their bulk on the counter until the next weekend. The Kindle solved that. For the same price as a weekend subscription, I get daily newspapers. For a fraction of the cost, I get "Time" magazine and others. I get blogs delivered daily for a buck a month, and I don't have to think about it. The moment I enter a wi-fi zone, the latest is downloaded instantly and ready for my perusal. No inserts, no blow-in cards. Just the content I've always loved.
NEXT: The Screen
