The new Amazon Kindle e-book reader is, in my opinion at least, the perfect product. Of course, I can’t deny that, being someone who counts reading as one of my most enjoyable hobbies, I must be pretty much the Amazon marketing team’s ideal consumer. On average, I would expect to read an absolute minimum of one book a week – and it’s not so unusual for me to have one novel, one non-fiction and a fair number of reference books on the go at any one time.
I don’t think that’s so uncommon, otherwise traditional print books wouldn’t sell so well, but it does mean that I can spend quite a bit of money on books. Over and above the financial side of things the space taken up by my collection of books can soon become quite large. Every so often, I go through the assorted volumes and, putting the reference books and any particular favourites to one side, have a clear out. Normally the books find their way to friends, relatives or charity shops.
I recently got rid of over fifty volumes in advance of moving house. It wasn’t until I saw them collected, packed up and ready to go, that I realised I was looking at a spend of anything between $500 and $1000 which had accumulated in less than a year.
Now, whilst the Amazon Kindle is a fairly costly item in itself, the downloadable e-books from the Kindle store are usually quite a bit cheaper than the printed equivalent. After all, there are no printing or distribution costs for the book’s publisher and neither are there any postal charges for Amazon. Even saving just a few dollars a book, which seems quite achievable, anyone who reads on a regular basis could fairly quickly recover the cost of the device and then start to save money over time.
Apart from financial considerations there are other benefits offered by the Kindle. The Kindle 2 has the capacity to store about 1500 books in its memory. The DX stores even more – around 3500. That’s a small library that you can now carry around with ease – and you save on storage space in your home or office as well.
Some users have suggested that the Kindle is a green, eco-friendly, device – based upon the fact that it will save on the usage of paper. Whilst you can see the logic in this argument, clearly some consideration must be given to the materials used in production and the manner of disposal when it reaches the end of its useful life.
Of course, the benefits achieved will vary from user to user. They will probably depend chiefly upon the number of books that any one individual buys and reads each year. However, for keen readers it does look like the Kindle offers a number of advantages which would more than justify the initial cost of the device.
Discover the Amazon Kindle e-book reader and learn how to save money by getting free Kindle books.
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