Today I’ve decided to talk about the Kindle for Barrie Summy’s Book Review Club.  Don’t forget to check out Barrie’s other great book club reviews.

 I didn’t know what to get my husband for Father’s Day, so I consulted with my daughter and decided that since he is an avid reader and our bookshelves are overflowing, what better present than a Kindle.  I checked out the smaller 6” and larger DX 9.7” models.

It was a toss up, smaller and less expensive ($359.00) vs. larger screen and costlier ($489.00).  But the ultimate decision on any purchase lies in it’s use.  What will he use it for?  What capacity will he need?  What features most closely match his needs?

While you can read a book on both Kindles, the new DX model with the larger screen is more convenient if you want to subscribe to journals and newspapers or purchase college textbooks. 

So far, we haven’t subscribed to any journals or newspapers, but we purchased a textbook the other day.  The download took more than 60 seconds.  I think the wireless connection in our house was slow, so I can’t say whether it will always take a longer period of time to download, but we’ll see.  We did download several samples(The first chapters or pages of a book).  Those downloads were quicker, 60 seconds or less.

The text-to-speech is very clear with English.  However, I happened to download a book that included several foreign words and I needed to check the text to identify the word.

The rotating display is cool, but sometimes you had to tilt the screen upright before the display turned to landscape mode.

 I love the way you can be reading several books at a time and the Kindle knows where you left off in each of them.  The menu screen is easy to use and allows you to jump to different locations in the book, search for a particular word or phrase, add a bookmark, highlight, and add notes.  The charge lasts several days.  You can also turn the wireless option off when you are not downloading a book and of course Amazon has made purchasing books so convenient and easy.  I know I haven’t talked about all the features, but it’s a busy day with lots more to do, so I’ll end here.

 If you haven’t gotten the idea yet, yes, my husband agreed to share his Kindle DX with me.  He’s pretty good about sharing.  I try to read my books while he’s at the office and he gets access nights and weekends.  It’s kind of like sharing a cell phone in the early days of cell phones when you only kept it in the car for emergency use.  I’m guessing that as time goes by, we may need to buy another Kindle, and maybe by that time there will be more competition in the electronic book market.  But until then, I’ll sit back, pick my feet up, and enjoy the Kindle DX.

Happy reading everyone.

p.s.  Amazon is now saying that that Kindle DX is sold out.  Glad I got mine early.

Here are the stats on the Kindles from Amazon