The new Amazon Kindle ebook reader is, for me at least, a dream come true. Certainly, I would gladly admit that, as someone who considers reading as one of my main leisure activities, I must be pretty much Amazon’s target market. On average, I would expect to read an absolute minimum of one book a week – and it’s not unusual for me to have one fiction, one non-fiction and any number of reference books under consideration at the same time.
I don’t believe that’s so uncommon, otherwise traditional print books would sell a lot less, but it does mean that I can expend quite a lot of cash on books. Apart from the Every now and again I sift through the pile and, putting reference books and favourites to one side, have a bit of a clear out. Usually the books go to friends or charity shops.
I recently cleared out more than fifty volumes before moving home. It wasn’t until I saw them all, packed up and ready to go, that I realised I was looking at a spend of anywhere between $500 and $1000 which had built up in just under a year.
Now, whilst the Amazon Kindle is a fairly costly item in itself, the downloadable e-books from the Kindle store are normally quite a bit cheaper than the printed versions. After all, there are no printing and delivery costs for the publisher and no postage charges for Amazon. Even saving no more than a few dollars per book, which seems quite achievable, anyone who reads on a regular basis could fairly rapidly recover the cost of the device and then start to save money over time.
The potential benefits aren’t only financial. The Kindle 2 has a storage capacity for around 1500 e-books whereas the Kindle DX, which will begin shipping on June 10 2009, can accommodate 3500. That’s a lot of reading material – and a lot of physical storage space that will no longer be needed in your home or office.
Some reviewers have suggested that the Kindle is a green, eco-friendly, device – based upon the fact that it will save on the volume of paper used. It’s easy to see the logic, but clearly some consideration needs to be given to the materials used in production and also the manner in which the device will be disposed of when it reaches the end of its useful life.
The actual benefits achieved will vary from user to user and will probably depend mainly on the number of books bought each year. However, for keen readers, it does appear that the Kindle might offer a number of different advantages which should more than offset the initial purchase price.