Why Kindle?

So for those who don’t know (which wouldn’t be as many!) a Kindle is an eReader. Amazon had them out first, followed by Barnes and Noble’s “Nook” or vice versa and of course a whole load of other eReaders that followed by Sony and a few others as stated here. In case you were thinking of getting one, let me give you a few reasons as to why I got one and the achievement of the said expectation almost two years later.

a) I used to be a reader, an ardent one at that but other distractions came my way and I found myself completing reading books less frequently.

b) The only times I got to read was while eating (bad habit, I know) or while travelling (until motion sickness starts!) and during those times it was difficult to manoeuvre a book, especially with a plate of rice, unless you use cutlery and of course, and the trouble of an additional weight to your (hand)bag.

c) I found myself physically going out ‘less’ to buy books, clothes etc as online shopping proved to be easier and of course eBooks were available online!

d) Finally, I had taken a liking towards eBooks, so why not?

Tab or Reader?

The next big question that bothered me was tab or reader?

I browsed through countless sites, read dozens of reviews and asked from friends who owned both or either for their opinion and user experience. I made the decision finally to get myself a Kindle because:

a) I genuinely wanted to read more and due the Kindle’s limited functionalities (this was before Kindle Fire and Paperwhite) I knew the reading would take place. Also, as it was not touchscreen, I didn’t have to worry about flipping to wrong page by mistake etc.

b) Academic reading was increasing and most academic material is available via PDF so it was a piece-of-cake to convert them to .MOBI

c) The size of the Kindle was perfect to hide amidst your notebook read during a boring class or even during a presentation instead of cue cards.

d) My laptop usually went where I did and so did my phone and thus, didn’t necessarily need something in between that did almost the same thing.

e) India (where I was then) actually delivered a Kindle to your doorstep for cash-on-delivery and the conversion came to only LKR 15,000!

In Retrospect

The ride with my Kindle thus far has been a good one.

• I’ve read a few books including one that I completed during a countless number of ‘lunch hours’.
• My Kindle has saved me from lunch dates by myself, where you genuinely want to treat yourself to fancy lunch and a good read.
• As for its scope of being portable, I cannot stress enough. Imagine having nearly fifty books with you, always?
• The Kindle allows 2GB of space which I assumed would not be enough but upon conversion to .MOBI, I find it difficult to load it as expected.
• For the OCD few (as myself) it allows you to create categories and this works fantastic if you are reading through a series like A Song of Ice and Fire or to even group your research papers together.

Getting Yourself a Kindle? Good.

If you are in Sri Lanka and fancy getting yourself a Kindle, there are three options afaik: Kapruka (because they get stuff down for you I am told?); shipping it direct from Amazon or if you have a relative, friend uhm neighbour coming down to SL from the ‘Western’ world or India! The reliability of each of these sources however, I cannot guarantee, perhaps Google can help but I am not too sure.

As for why anyone shouldn’t get themselves a Kindle, I do not know. I suppose if you miss paperback and are one of those people who dig the smell of paper (which I too like but am willing to compromise on) or have an aversion towards eReads as a whole well I suppose the Kindle is not for you. But for the others, if you do want to experiment what you are getting yourself into, there is a Kindle app that you could download and play around with before going for the real deal.