Search in reviews, Q&A...

Customer reviews

5 star		72%
4 star		14%
3 star		7%
2 star		2%
1 star		4%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Reviews with images

See all customer images

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Social science professor

Kindle vs. Nook (updated)

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 28, 2010

Verified Purchase

UPDATE NOVEMBER 2011:

My review is now over a year old, as is the "Kindle Keyboard" as Amazon calls it now. There are newer models: the basic, cheapie Kindle and the Kindle Touch, and of course the Kindle Fire quasi-tablet.

Each of these models is an excellent choice. Whichever one is right for you just depends on your preferences.

The 3 e-ink Kindles are Kindle Keyboard (this one), Kindle Touch (the newest "flagship" model), and the basic Kindle. All 3 of them have EXACTLY THE SAME 6" DISPLAY, with the same sharp typeface and high contrast that reads like ink on paper with no eyestrain. The Kindle Keyboard is the oldest of these models, and I got one of the first ones when they came out in August 2010.

I still absolutely LOVE my Kindle Keyboard and use it almost every day. I have read dozens of books on it. I like the newer models, they have some neat features, but the experience of reading a book on them is no better or worse than on my 1-year-old Kindle Keyboard. Page turns are now smoother and faster on the newest Kindles, but the difference is not enough to make it worth the cost of upgrading, in my opinion.

The touch-screen interface of the Kindle Touch is pretty neat. But, unlike my iPad, I only use my Kindle to read books, and reading books is just as nice on any of the current Kindle models. I don't consider the touch screen a "must have" feature, and I'm normally obsessed with having the latest version of every tech product I own.

For that reason, I think the cheapest Kindle is an excellent choice. It has less memory than the Keyboard or Touch, but it has plenty enough for 100s of books, and of course you always get free storage in the Amazon cloud for any books that you don't need to have on your device at this moment, such as books you've already read. All your Kindle books are automatically stored in Amazon's cloud, whether they're on your device or not, and getting them back on your device is super-easy, regardless of which Kindle model you have.

If this will be your first e-reader, you can choose one of these Kindle models or the Barnes and Noble Nook Simple Touch. The Nook Simple Touch has the same 6" e-ink display as the 3 Kindle models, but different typefaces. I think the letters are a little sharper on the Kindles, but the Nook Simple Touch typefaces are also very readable, plus you get a few more choices of typefaces compared to the Kindle.

The "Nook First Edition" is still available at a steeply discounted price, but it is a poor performer by today's standards. (You wouldn't buy an "ipod first edition," except possibly as a collector's item, would you?)

Those are the e-ink Kindles and Nooks. Of course, you might be considering one of the quasi-tablets, Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet. Both are excellent, both have their strengths. Nook Tablet's main advantage is it has twice the internal memory as Kindle Fire - but B&N only lets you use a small fraction of it for third-party content, whereas you can use all of KF's available memory for 3rd party content. And, KF is more affordable.

In my opinion, the real deciding factor between a Kindle product and a Nook product is not any specific feature of the hardware or software - both product families are excellent. The real decision point is whether you prefer living in Amazon's universe or Barnes & Noble's. Content you buy from Amazon only works with Kindles, while content you buy from B&N only works with Nooks.

Both universes have their advantages, so it's a matter of personal preference. B&N's main advantage is you can take your device into your local B&N store and get real assistance from a human being. But Amazon has dedicated customer service lines for Kindle support and you can get a real human on the phone very quickly (in my experience), and they are very helpful. Plus, Kindles and Nooks are generally very easy to use, so you'll probably need very little tech support.

I'm already heavily invested into the Amazon universe, having purchased many dozens of Kindle books; plus, I have an Amazon prime membership, which to my family is very worth the cost (you get free streaming video of TV shows and movies plus unlimited free 2-day air shipping on most Amazon purchases). So if my Kindle were lost or stolen, I'd buy another Kindle product rather than a Nook product.

Whatever you buy, you'll probably be happy. The choices available now are quite good, and prices are better than ever. It's hard to believe that the basic Kindle at only 79 bucks performs better and costs 1/3 as much as the now two-year-old Kindle 2 (an older, slightly larger version of the Kindle Keyboard).

If you're considering the Kindle keyboard, you can read my original review of it below. (Sorry it's so long!) The "nook" it refers to is the "Nook first edition," which was fine in 2009 but is a poor choice by the standards of currently available Nook and Kindle models.

------------------------

If you're trying to choose between a Nook and a Kindle, perhaps I can help. I and family members have owned a Nook (the original one), a Kindle 2, and a Kindle DX. When Amazon announced the Kindle 3 (Kindle Keyboard) in summer 2010, I pre-ordered two Kindle 3's: the wi-fi only model in graphite, and the wi-fi + 3G model in white. They arrived in late August and we have used them very regularly since then. For us, Kindle is better than Nook, but Nook is a good device with its own advantages that I will discuss below. I'll end this review with a few words about the Nook Color.

First, reasons why we prefer the Kindle:

* Speed

In our experience, the Kindle is very zippy compared to the Nook. Page refresh speed (the time it takes a new page to appear after you push the page-turn button) was WAY quicker on Kindle 2 than on Nook, and it's quicker yet on Kindle 3. Yet, I read a whole book on the Nook and didn't find the slower page refresh to be annoying - you get used to it, and it's not a problem.

For me, the more important speed difference concerns navigation - moving the cursor around the screen, for example to pick a book from your library, or to jump to a chapter by selecting it in the table of contents. On Kindle, you do this by pushing a 5-way rocker button, and the cursor moves very quickly. On Nook, you do this by activating the color LCD touchscreen (which normally shuts off when not in use, to conserve battery). A "virtual rocker button" appears on the screen, and you touch it to move the cursor. Unfortunately, the Nook cursor moves very sluggishly. This might not be a big deal to you, but it really got annoying to me, especially since my wife's Kindle was so quick and responsive.

In November 2010, Nook got a software upgrade that increases page refresh speed and makes navigation more responsive. I returned my Nook months ago, so I cannot tell you if the Nook's performance is now equal to the Kindle's, but Nook owners in the comments section have convinced me that the software update improves the experience of using the Nook. If performance is a big factor in your decision, visit a Best Buy and compare Kindle and Nook side by side.

* Screen contrast

You've seen Amazon's claims that the Kindle 3 e-ink has 50% better contrast than Kindle 2 or other e-ink devices. I have no way of precisely measuring the improvement in contrast, but I can tell you that the Kindle 3 display definitely has more contrast than Kindle 2 or Nook. The difference is noticeable, and important: more screen contrast means less eyestrain when reading in poorly lit rooms.

In well-lit rooms, the Nook and Kindle 2 have enough contrast to allow for comfortable reading. But I often read in low-light conditions, like in bed at night, or in a poorly lit room. In these situations, reading on Nook or Kindle 2 was a bit uncomfortable and often gave me a mild headache. When I got the Kindle 3, the extra contrast was immediately noticeable, and made it more comfortable to read under less-than-ideal lighting conditions. (If you go with a Nook, just make sure you have a good reading lamp nearby.)

* Battery life

The Nook's color LCD touch screen drains its battery quickly - I could never get more than 5 days out of a charge. The Kindle 2 had longer battery life than the Nook, and Kindle 3 has even longer life: in the 3 months since we received our Kindle 3's, we typically get 3 weeks of battery life between charges. (We keep wireless off about half the time to save battery power.)

* Weight

Nook weighs about 3 ounces more than the new Kindle, and you can really feel the difference. Without a case, Nook is still light enough to hold in one hand for long reading sessions without fatigue. But in a case, Nook is a heavy sucker. The new Kindle 3 is so light, even in a case, we find it comfortable holding in one hand for long reading sessions.

Reasons some people might prefer the Nook:

* In-store experience

If you need help with your nook, you can take it to any barnes and noble and get a real human to help. You can take your nook into the coffee shop section of your local B&N store and read any book for free for up to one hour per day. When you take your nook to B&N, some in-store special deals and the occasional free book pop up on your screen.

* User-replaceable battery

Rechargeable batteries eventually lose their ability to hold a charge. Nook's battery is user-replaceable and relatively inexpensive. To replace Kindle's battery, Amazon wants you to ship your Kindle to Amazon, and they will ship you back a DIFFERENT Kindle than the one you sent (it's the same model, for example if you send a white Kindle 3, you get a white Kindle 3 back, but you get a "refurbished" one, NOT the exact one you sent them). I don't like this at all.

However, several people have posted comments here that have eased my concerns. Someone looked up statistics on the Kindle's battery and did some simple calculations to show that it should last for 3 or more years. Before that happens, I will surely have upgraded to a newer Kindle model by then. Also, someone found some companies that sell Kindle batteries at reasonable cost and have how-to videos that demonstrate how we can replace the battery ourselves. Doing this would void the Kindle's warranty, but the battery will probably not fail until long after the warranty expires.

[update June 2011: The batteries in the Nook Color and Nook Simple Touch are not replaceable, but the battery in the original Nook is.]

* ePub

Nook uses the ePub format, a widely used open format. Amazon uses a proprietary ebook format. Many libraries will "lend" ebooks in the ePub format, which works with nook but not kindle. However, a free and reputable program called Calibre allows you to translate ebooks from one format to another - it supports many formats, including ePub and Kindle. The only catch is that it doesn't work with copy-protected ebooks, so you can't, for example, buy a Kindle book (which is copy protected) and translate it to ePub so you can read it on a Nook.

* Nook's color LCD touchscreen

The original Nook has a small color LCD screen on the bottom for navigation. This could be a pro or con, depending on your preferences. It makes the Nook hipper and less drab than Kindle. Some people enjoy using the color LCD to view their library or navigate. I did, at first. But after two weeks of use, and comparisons with my wife's Kindle, I found the dedicated buttons of the Kindle easier and far quicker to use than the Nook's color touchscreen. I also found the bright light from the color screen distracting when I was trying to read a book or newspaper (though when not in use, it shuts off after a minute or so to conserve battery).

* expandable capacity

Nook comes with 2GB of internal memory. If you need more capacity, you can insert a microSD card to add up to 16GB more memory. Kindle comes with 4GB of internal memory - twice as much as Nook - but there's no way to expand that. Kindle doesn't accept memory cards of any type. If you mainly use your device to read ebooks and newspapers, this shouldn't be an issue. I have over 100 books on my Kindle, and I've used only a tiny fraction of the memory. Once Kindle's memory fills up, just delete books you don't need immediate access to; you can always restore them later, in seconds, for free.

A few other notes:

Kindle and Nook have other features, such as an MP3 player and a web browser, but I caution you to have low expectations for these features. The MP3 player on the Kindle is like the first-generation iPod shuffle - you can't see what song is playing, and you can't navigate to other songs on your device. I don't like the browser on either device; e-ink is just not a good technology for surfing the web; it's slower and clunkier than LCD screen technology, so even the browser on an Android phone or iPod touch is more enjoyable to use. However, some commenters have more favorable views of either device's browser, and you might, too.

* ebook lending

If you have a Nook or a Kindle, you can "lend" an ebook you purchased to someone else with the same device for up to two weeks. The Nook has always had this feature. The Kindle just got this feature as of December 2010. Most but not all purchased ebooks are lendable, due to publisher restrictions.

* PDF support

Kindle and Nook both handle PDF files, but in different ways. When you put a PDF file on your nook, nook converts it into an ebook-like file, then you can adjust the font size, and the text and pagination will adjust just like with any ebook. But you cannot see the original PDF file in the native format in which it was created. Kindle 3 and Kindle DX have native support for PDF files. You can see PDF files just as they would appear on your computer. You can also convert PDF files to an ebook-like format, and then Kindle handles them just the way the Nook handles them - text and pagination adjust when you change the font size. Unfortunately, some symbols, equations, and graphics get lost or mangled in the translation - even when viewing PDF files in their native format on the Kindle. Moreover, the small screen size of the Kindle 3 and the Nook is not great for PDF files, most of which are designed for a larger page size. You can zoom and pan, but this is cumbersome and tiresome. Thanks to commenters who suggested viewing PDF files in landscape mode on the Kindle (I don't know if you can do this on Nook); this way, you can see the entire top half of the page without panning, and then scroll down to the bottom half. This works a little better.

SUMMARY:

Nook and Kindle each offer their own advantages. We like the nook's user-replaceable battery, compatibility with ePub format, and in-store experience. But we strongly prefer Kindle 3 because its performance is zippier, its higher-contrast screen is easier to read, and it's smaller and lighter so it is more portable and more comfortable to hold in one hand for long reading sessions.

31,389 people found this helpful

Helpful

Isaac Alonzo

Great eReader!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 18, 2011

Verified Purchase

The Amazon Kindle is one of those devices that raises the "why they didn't invent this before?", because with its simple design and even simpler user interface will make sure even people not that computer savvy can use it straight out of the box. And the Kindle works because gives us the chance to not just read more but do it without clogging your bags and hurting our backs.
Because books have been here since the invention of the printing machine in Germany hundred of years ago, and nothing really changed about books until the 20th century was gone, and technology really provided us with ways to carry all our information with us all the time. So basically the same that happened to phones that went from our homes to our pockets, same has just happen with books from the physical and heavy form that we all know and even if they are durable, you have a limit number of which you can carry with you either because of space limits or they are just so heavy that we limit ourselves to one or two at times (like with big college books).

Kindle comes in two sizes (actual generation) and with the 6" version you can choose between three versions: sponsored messages (more about it later), Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + free 3G. And there is a even bigger version with 9.7" with Wi-Fi but it lacks of the free 3G connection, something that doesn't make sense at all to me, maybe is less portable but I think they might be losing some sales because without 24/7 access to the Kindle book store some may lose interest in purchasing the book.
The Kindle 6" is just as big as a paperback novel but a bit lighter. Part of the success of this version is that its smaller physical form makes it ideal to have it with you anytime! Is easy to hold in almost any position in a confortable way and with buttons each side to turn pages back and forth you wont lose control over the book you are reading.
The menu is pretty straight forward with self explanatory options that will make the experience to use it the first time not painful at all. Moving within the main menu is not as fast as most of the electronic devices we use everyday, it takes around half a second to move between items and might take some time to get used to but after two months using it I have used the menu mostly to turn the wireless on and off to sync the book page position after I finish reading just in case I want to continue reading in my laptop.
To me the most impressive part of the Kindle is the screen, even after reading few dozens of costumer reviews on amazon about how good and paper like the screen was, nothing really prepared me for impression that gave it to me the first time I saw it with my own eyes. You have to look twice because its just amazingly clear that you would think the text is actually printed onto the screen. The level of detail that this screen can show with its unique E Ink screen will make you forget that you have an electronic device in your hands and give you the entire book like experience. And is this technology that allows you to read without the eye strain that LCD screens produce. The differences between LCD and E Ink are so tangible from the eye strain point of view. With LCD you have a RGB matrix illuminated from behind that even look good and colorful, that light produces stress in our eyes relative to the overall brightness. Exactly that headache you feel when using your laptop in a dark room for a long period of time. But the E Ink screen behaves just like a regular book so is not illuminated in any form and just like the real thing, you have to get yourself a place well lit or purchasing the original cover with light (more about it later). I have read for over two ours with no eye strain whatsoever and I tried to read with the Kindle for iPad the same book and after few minutes you really feel your eyes asking for a timeout. So LCD might be great for multimedia apps and games but for reading is just useless.
Where the E Ink screen really outperforms the LCD is reading outside where you have to read under the sunlight, since E Ink screen look and behave like real paper there is no problem reading under sunlight. The matte finish ensures that you wont have more glare than reading a real book. But the LCD have a glass cover that reflects everything in front of it (even your face) and its no surprise is almost impossible use an iPad or any other device that uses LCD under the bright sunlight.

We have reached a point in our technology driven world that battery powered devices are everywhere in our lives. Just look around and TV's remote control, game platform gamepads, cell phones, laptops, car keys and this is an endless list because we always want to keep them close to us, starting from TV's remote control when electronic was ancient compared with where we are today. But they all share the same limitation, each device is as portable as battery's capability to hold its charge. We are all battery worried on a daily basis, mostly with our cell phones because since we have them with us longer than any other device that we have chargers everywhere we go: house, car, office, etc.
The Kindle comes to give us a peace of mind, that's the way I see it. With the Wi-Fi and 3G off it took 29 days to drain the battery and that's the kind of thing that set a new standard among the rest of the battery powered devices we have, and I mention that the wireless was off because unless you want to search, buy or sync a book there is no reason for you to leave it on. When you think about an electronic device with battery life measured in days or even months instead of hours, then you have an ultra portable solution. You could charge it before going to a cruise without worrying about bringing the charger with you. Even though batteries get weaker as you get them through charging cycles, if you have a month of charge to begin with I am sure that by the time the battery can only hold its charge for a week you most likely will have a new kindle already. So the peace of mind concept still works anyways because even if the charge last 5 days still ages ahead of any other battery powered electronic device we currently own. And remember the screen itself only needs energy when you are changing the content, and that's why when you switch it off you get a screensaver instead a blank screen because they put the image (or special offers) and then shut the electronics inside so is not draining energy anymore until you switch it on again later.
One of the things that really sold me the Kindle was the "Free 3G" part of the name. Amazon promises to pay for the 3G connection you use browsing, buying and syncing books, but no internet browsing without Wi-Fi connection but even then the browser is so primitive that even if you feel curious to see how it performs I can assure you that in few seconds you will be closing the browser and back to reading books. But where the free 3G shines is with what Amazon calls Whispersync that takes care of the books you purchase by keep in them in your personal online archive that will hold your books forever free of charge, so even if you delete them from your kindle you can always re-download them for free anytime you want. How about that?
The Wi-Fi is what you would expect from any other device, it connects to any router even if is password protected (I haven't tried all types of encryption yet) and I sure connected with my house protected router at first try. Just nothing out of the regular Wi-Fi from our laptop.
It has 4gb onboard flash memory and there is no way to alter that amount because there is no memory slot that we can use to expand it. Not that is a bad thing because Amazon claims can hold up to 3500 books! And that's an entire library that can fit in your hands. Once you have more books in the home screen than you are confortable with you can group them into collections to keep everything organized the way you want it. I personally order them by themes because is the logical way to do it.
To be honest the thing that really sold me the Kindle in first place was the fact that you can be reading that book you really want in less than a minute no matter where you are in the world, and to me since I live in the Dominican Republic it was kind of a big deal since the regular shipping cost of anything I buy in amazon would double the price of a $10 dollar book since its 2 to 3 dollars shipping to my courier and then 8 dollars a pound to get it in Santo Domingo and by the time it reaches my hand the final cost would be around $18 dollars plus the extra time from USA to Dominican Republic. So this means that $10 dollar book will still be a $10 dollar book when its in my hands (actual inside my Kindle but you get the idea). So no more shipping and no more waiting anymore! You could just download it straight to the computer you are using to buy it and use the Kindle for PC (or Mac) and start reading at the office and then download it to your Kindle when you are home and you could take it from where you left it when you were reading in first place after it syncs automatically.
One concept that is really cool about the infrastructure that's behind the Kindle is the "buy once, read everywhere" concept. Actually you don't need the actual device to read Kindle books. There is an application for every device you could own right now so you could read it with out the cost of the Kindle reader itself, although would be a shame that you couldn't feel the pleasure of reading in such a beautiful screen. Plus you would be reading the book in a LCD or LED and either of those would cause eye strain so you won't be reading that long to surely enjoy the book. So basically Amazon offer Kindle reading applications for Blackberry, iPhone, Android phones (and tablets), iPad, PC and Mac, this line up I am sure that you own at least one of those devices so you can continue reading in London even if you forgot your Kindle in Chicago. What this does is brings us the commodity to read everywhere we go because since you have your personal archive at Amazon Books Store, you just can re-download the book into any of those device with your Amazon login and password. This also means that in few years when you get a newer generation Kindle, you just login and download your books again like nothing happen.

The Kindle Book Store has something really unique to offer, you can read the first 10 pages of every book for free so you can decide if you like it before you buy it. So this means the almost 1 million books are at your disposal to try them for as long as you want and then if you like them you can purchase the book and continue reading. This is a win-win situation because you get to read them and decide, and for the publishers because the books themselves to draw attention from potential buyers. I guess all those new kindle versions of books better have a great first 10 pages if they really want to sell.
Reading a book on my Kindle is such a grateful experience, you just read and read, and to be really honest with you I feel that the Kindle itself makes reading more confortable since you don't have to hold the book in a certain way to keep it open and when you switch hands you are being forced to awkward positions in order to hold it open while you are in bed or couch. No matter which hand I use still the same method to hold it and turn pages back and forth. The whole page turning process is faster and quitter than the real thing so I don't wake up my wife when I am reading in bed late at night.

But what if you are tired to read or maybe you are driving, well you can make the Kindle read the book to you. That's right! This thing has a great text to speech technology that will read the book with either male or female voice. May not be the most human voice in the world but still far from sounding like the text to speech in your computer. You can also select the speed of reading so you can get to a pace that really fits you. Also you can pause it to take that phone call and just click resume to continue reading. Sometimes I use the text to speech feature to read it along with me, but that's just a personal choice and to be honest I find it more confortable sometimes when I have a quiet place. You can hear it either using the built-in speakers in the back of the Kindle or use a regular 1/8" plug at the bottom edge. Either way is a nice feature to have at hand when your eyes are tired from a long day and want something to take you away from reality for a couple of minutes. This feature will sure drain more power from the battery because the hardware has to work more to process the sound and to reproduce it, in my 29 days battery drain test I never used either wireless or text to speech because I wanted to keep it as book-like experience as I could be and books neither talk or connect to internet (at least not the ones in my bookcase).

Some of you might think, what if I like to write notes and highlight content in my books? Well you can still do those things with your kindle books! It will allow you to use the 5-way pad to move through the text to reach the point where you want to start highlighting and select text to the point you want it to. One cool feature about highlighting is that it will show you popular highlights and the number of people that did it, so that way you may notice an interesting paragraph or quote, you can choose to disable this feature anytime you want. But still great to see a popular part of the book that might help you understand its content better. Other thing you can also do is write notes, kind of the same process you use for highlights but instead of selecting the text you just move the cursor to the point of the note and then use the keyboard to type the note and when you are done you can either just save it or save it and share it. Both highlights and notes are really helpful when you want to reread a book so you might digest it better with all the previous highlights and notes and maybe with the popular highlights that other people already did.

But what if you are reading and there is a word that you don't know? Well Kindle has a built-in dictionary that will give you a brief description of any word you move the cursor to, and you can expand the description by clicking enter. So no more confusion at the middle of the night forcing you to stand up and get a dictionary or continue reading without know the entire context of the book you are reading. This is a feature that every Kindle user will appreciate.
Something even better about the Kindle Book Store is there is a great selection of books that are totally free to download because its copyright its been open, mostly books prior 1930. That means most the the literature classics are available for you to download right away totally free, that way you could have an entire library inside your Kindle without paying a dime. Sure nobody is going to argue that free books is a concept worth trying to spread culture to the world.
Maybe some of you are asking, is it only for books? Not exactly, because it has a built-in PDF reader so you can just transfer the files with the provided USB cable to your Kindle from your computer and maybe read that file the client emailed you when you were already getting ready to go lunch, so you don't have to bring that heavy laptop with you to read it. No brainer here actually, if you have large documents and your eyes can keep up with the strain of reading a 120 pages document on your computer, just drop it to your Kindle and read the entire thing faster and painless. That's pretty much it. We live in a world that uses PDF files for anything that has to be read without sacrificing quality and keep it the file size small enough to sending in an email.

Once you have it with you, maybe you will find it nice but want to protect your precious investment in that cool electronic reading device right? Well there is a broad selection of covers for Kindle on Amazon and even eBay. But here is the deal, Amazon also makes its own leather cover that also offers a LED light for you to read when its too dark. I have it and I find it a great solution that offers protection to the screen without being too intrusive with the entire reading experience. Its confortable to touch and comes in many colors so you can get the one that fits your taste.

The elastic band that keeps it close feels strong enough to take years of use without getting loose and has a flab that says Amazon Kindle so you don't forget what's inside (sorry for that joke). The Kindle its attached to the cover with two metallic hinges that will get inside onto the holes in the left edge of the screen, also those will draw power from the battery to power the light which in find it genius because you don't have to carry extra batteries just for the cover.

Of course it will shorten the battery life but is a price we have to pay for the luxury of a portable light that goes along with our Kindle. Even though it projects the light from the screen's upper right corner it does provide light to the entire screen, more intense closer to the light but at the end it does its job.

A newer version to the Kindle line up is the Special Offers version, which delivers advertising to your kindle from Amazon. It comes at a reduced price so basically the ads pay for the rest of the rest of the regular price tag. A friend of mine has one and he tells me he actually finds those ads nice and are not intrusive at all while reading. They just appear at the bottom of the home screen and the screensavers. It will only take some more development of the advertising network until we reach the point where the Kindle itself will be free to keep up watching those ads. As long as does not pop out while I am reading I am confortable with the ads, we already have them on TV and internet so is something we are used to.

At the end of the day those of you looking for a reliable platform to read your books, magazines, newspapers and any other digital document on the go will find the kindle extremely convenient to fulfill your needs. I am not saying that printed books will die or anything else but maybe some of us rather have our books everywhere available to be read anytime we want than having a bookcase full of books gathering dust just eating out our space. I find that the Kindle as an entire product with the archives, free 3G, dedicated book store and compatibility with many of the electronic devices we already own is the key of the success of the product itself. And let's don't forget that it has the internet giant Amazon behind it to provide excellent service and almost a million books available to be download anytime with no shipping cost and no waiting, just click and its yours to read anywhere you are in the world.
Maybe I will still be purchasing photography books because those need to be seen in full color and see the techniques and some nostalgic sense of knowing you own something tangible that you can reach and feel. But you could finish a book and send it to Kindle Books Store with one click and have a thousand downloads before your editor send it to be printed.
Kindle is the future of the way we will be reading our stuff in the years to come. It does mimic the natural way we use to read books and gives you the comfort to have all your books right there with you without breaking your back. I love it and those who know me have been hearing it ever since I got it back in April, as my friend Erika Valenzuela says "the Kindle is to books what iPods are to CD's". That sole line sums up everything I already said in the post.
I think this is one of those post that you have to update later on, lets see what Kindle does in the near future.

Image Unavailable

Kindle Keyboard 3G, Free 3G + Wi-Fi, 6" E Ink Display - includes Special Offers & Sponsored Screensavers

Search in reviews, Q&A...

Customer reviews

Reviews with images

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.