Home to the older gamer

by mr nick monkey

Many gadgets that we buy fall into the category of luxury purchase (I’m looking at you Apple TV) and some occasionally actually make our lives better and my new Kindle falls into that latter category.  After reading books pretty much every day since I was an adorable little cherub this new-ish eBook malarkey finally piqued my interest.  I got an iPad last year and as much as I found it excellent for reading magazines and newspapers it just didn’t work in regard to reading a book in the palm of your hand whilst sat on the throne.  Most important.

I came to the decision last year of asking Santa for one which he duly obliged though he continues to remove the money out of my account for my gifts since I became an adult.  I was initially quite unimpressed; the packaging, which is always something to savour with a new purchase, was terrible.  It looked like the cardboard Amazon send your Blu-rays in.  The device itself also looked quite cheap, it weighs nothing and when compared to an iPad feels like a calculator you will lose down the back of the sofa.

After turning it on though I suddenly became a little impressed, within five minutes I had connected it to my Wi-Fi network and found my Amazon account.  I could now start downloading books which I did, then I did again, then I did again for good measure.  The nice thing also being that the books download in less than a minute.

The books appear to be priced about right; around £6-7 for a new release and pennies for some of the older ones and there are literally thousands of them to choose from.  The battery on it is phenomenal and would easily last you two weeks on your summer holiday in Cleethorpes cowering from the rain.

The screen on it gives off no light so you can sit and read, (or in the case of that ridiculous advert, read whilst pushing a baby) for hours with no eye strain though you will need a lamp if it is quite dark.

So that’s it really i continue to use it every day and I can honestly never imagine buying one of those archaic book things ever again as after using this for tens of hours it has never once felt like I was using it just because it was new.