|  |
| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
 Travelling with a Kindle in Asia Mar 09, 2010
An Australian based Kindle travelling through the North Eastern parts of India can be a frustrating exercise. I was on a three week vacation in West Bengal covering the major city of Kolkata, a seething mass of 15 million people, in a climate that was becoming hotter and more humid on a daily basis. From there it was onto Darjeeling, a place famous for its tea, tourism and remnants of its former colonial heritage. Currently this area is in 'dispute' with the West Bengal government and is seeking self status - Gurkaland - so the difficulties of travel in this area are compounded by poorly maintained roads so bad that trips of 50 -60km can take up to 3-4 hours and rolling 'strikes' from the separatist movement.
Now the picture is painted how does my Kindle work within this environment - all of the hotels at the 4/5 star level only have an internet connection and no PC - this is generally the case wherever you travel these days. In this part of the world you do find a 'business centre' in each of these hotels - however it is generally a single PC and an aged one at that. As an Australian Kindle this is your only power source and you are hardly going to leave it to charge for an hour or two whilst you mooch around the local haunts -chances are it won't be there when you return!
So once the battery drained after the initial flight to Singapore it was game over for reading and a reversion to the hardback I was forced to buy on my travels.
The Kindle for us Aussies is fine - at home and in your own residence. Outside that environment its a paperweight and I certainly won't bother taking it on my travels again. Until we can charge the Kindle up through a power source it will never become the international bedside companion. I have though of using the Power Monkey - a portable charger that pumps out a very low voltage for mobile phones and the like but I am reluctant to test this theory as it may cook the unit. Any ideas out there for my new paperweight?
Lost without it Mar 09, 2010
Love the Kindle - wish it had a dictionary lookup feature independant of the books it holds. I'd be lost without my Kindle.
 I Love My Kindle Mar 05, 2010
What was life like before a Kindle - truly all kidding aside it consisted of reading books from Amazon and listening to books on my Apple Ipod.
Then last Xmas along came my Kindle and my life changed again - now I exist in three realms - I consider myself lucky and privileged to be at the crossroads of the three media - paper books, Ipod and Kindle books. I have all three and life is perfect.
But (I am ashamed to admit) I read a lot of classical and obscure books. And over and over again I am finding that my taste in books (example: Lytton Strachey, Lawrence and Gerald Durrell, Yeats, Maugham, Walter Scottand et cetera) is not only readily available for my kindle - it is rewarded by being so inexpensive that it is almost free!!!
I DO LOVE MY KINDLE and all the paradisical privileges it brings with it!
I love my Kindle! Feb 24, 2010
I received a Kindle for Christmas and I wasn't thrilled about getting the product. After sitting on my shelf for 3 weeks and my husband making me feel guilty about not using it, I finally took it out of the packaging. I hate to read manuals and I'm not good at electronics so I figured I would quickly be putting the Kindle back into its box. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the setup was amazingly easy. Within minutes I was set to go and quickly downloaded my first book. Reading the books on the Kindle have been great on my eyes because since I turned 40 it has become more and more difficult to see up close. The Kindle has solved this problem for me. I've even downloaded a magazine subscription for $1.25 a month. The only downside I can even think of is that since I'm reading the book at a larger font and I'm a fast reader, I spend alot of time hitting the "NEXT PAGE" button.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 most expensive non-book. ever. Feb 17, 2010
After a little over a year, my Kindle went ka-put. I've charged it and tried turning it on and get nothing. Not even a light or error message of some sort. I (literally) bought into the whole Oprah rave and fell for the $50 off special at the time. I bought one online book to start, which I never even finished before I found out that it just stopped working. The only things I did find convenient with it was the fact that I could lay sideways and read without having to fold or awkwardly manage a book. But let's face it, if I'm already in that position, I'm falling asleep in 5 mins, which is normally what happened. The other thing I liked was the look-up on any word I wanted, but I could have just kept a dictionary nearby.
So having said all that, I realized in this (very expensive) exercise, that I'm a traditionalist. I love going thru actual books and flipping pages. If I liked them, they're mine forever and I can get to them anytime I want. If not, I can still get a bit of money back from them at the local Half-Priced Books. The Kindle always felt fragile to me. One small move and I'm bounding pages forward or back. The book cover for it was awful, and it would never stay in place.
I've contacted customer support to see if there's any kind of warranty or replacement part or even sympathy that could be offered to my dead Kindle...but to no avail.
|
| | |
