I got my wife a Kindle for Christmas and she loves it. We used to fill a shopping bag with hard copy books every time we shopped at Half Price Books, a store in our area, and I was not sure how she would take to the e-book format. The Amazon catalog is huge and many things are free or very inexpensive. This helps to eliminate the need for another room addition for a library. Our son is a purist and as a writer he likes the hard bound printed word but he seemed to be on the Kindle over the holidays whenever his Mom set it down.
The Kindle is not back lighted which allows for much longer battery life. The color versions of the E-Books seemed to have a much shorter battery life due to the lighted graphics. I surveyed the book shelves my wife had in her collection and few if any have pictures at all so unless you are reading story books to a small child the color option is not a necessity for a word only text format.
The Kindle does need a light source if you are reading in low light situations. I got my wife the cover that has a built in light. There was a malfunction with this cover and a quick communication to Amazon had one delivered in two days for a free replacement.
I purchased the Kindle that cost a little more because it has Wi-Fi and a free AT&T communication link. This seems to make it easier to search and upload items. There are some features that I am not all that sure about because my wife keeps it with her all the time but there is a share option that I believe you can loan someone a copy of one of your books for something like 30 days. There are also options to read the first chapter of a book before deciding to purchase. My wife also gets email specials for books on sale and advance notice of new releases.
Becky really enjoys her Kindle and my review is just on that product because I have no first hand info on the other E-Books out there. The electronics device industry grows dramatically on a short term basis and I have noticed some new companies entering the E-Book arena. Many devices will do books, take pictures and videos, phone home and store every note of music ever recorded. The Kindle does book text and does it pretty well.
bERfErD
