Customer Reviews:
 Better than a Book March 13, 2008
18 out of 21 found this review helpful
Amazon's Kindle reading device is all that I expected and more. It is a pleasure to read the text on a screen that uses an eye pleasing ink technology. The command buttons have crisp action and are nicely placed on the machine. I like the Kindle holder, a cloth clam shell with an elastic band for closing. The access to the internet is wonderful for readers who like to look up definitions and explore ideas in articles while they read. The availability of books, newspapers, and blogs is broad and expands day by day. Buying books from Amazon is a one-click procedure on the Kindle, and the book arrives on the machine in minutes.
I like to explore the art of novels and poetry. In the past, I underlined passages in novels and made personal notes throughout paper volumes. With Kindle, I can clip entire pages to a reading file, highlight interesting lines in the text, and place personal notes in the text for later reference. The Kindle has increased my reading pleasure in spite of my original hesitation to give up the touch and scent of paper books.
The Kindle technology is sure to evolve, and I will up-date as needed. I have to think that the Kindle will cause at least a mini-revolution in the publishing industry. I am very glad to be part of this phenomenon early in the technology development.
What's Not to Love? March 13, 2008
22 out of 24 found this review helpful
Received my Kindle today and absolutely love it! I'm certainly not the most high-tech person in the world, but using this little gadget has been a breeze. The design of the Kindle is very comfortable. In addition, the ability to increase the text size was very important to me, and this feature works very well. This item was certainly worth the wait.
Simply Great! March 12, 2008
21 out of 25 found this review helpful
I never write reviews nor did I ever think that an electronic device could replace a book. But skeptical as I was I still ordered the product and have been thrilled for the past 3 months that I did. I have given one away as a present and have talked family members into giving it a try. There are now 5 of us using Kindles and all five give it a 5 star rating. Sure there are a few minor quibbles like changing the page by mistake when picking it up but all in all the screen, the convenience, and readability (read it yesterday for 2 hours on a sunny beach) are just great. This is a product that is a true break through and I applaud everything and everyone involved in bringing it to market. Work of Genius!
 Reading twice as much with the same cost. March 12, 2008
15 out of 18 found this review helpful
This is my first e-book reader, before this I used to read good old fashioned books, usually bought from amazon to save money. So I had to wait for them to get here and after reading them I would store them for a while and being a bookworm I started to get overloaded and had to start donating the books so I can make room for more. The library where I live wasn't a very good one so I couldn't depend on borrowing library books. So, now I can buy books whenever I like, for a much lower price and I don't have to worry about what to do with them once they become too many. At the same time, i can look up stuff and highlight stuff whenever I want, I do most of my reading outside my house.. so this was a great advantage for me. The included dictionary and connection to internet google and wikipedia have proven so useful so many times! now I'm getting more from my books. I can carry as many as I like.. my last trip was to egypt and I had to fill half a bag with books and I had to leave them there when I was done since I didn't want to carry them all the way back.. now I don't have to worry about that!
The only reason why I gave this 4 stars instead of 5 is the cover.. it's too bad that such a great device would be put inside a cover like this, it's awkward, it's hard to use and my kindle fell from it several times while I was trying to open it.. instead I bought one of those padded wraps from e-bags, they work much better.. Otherwise, I have no complaints.. I have had it for 3 months now and it never leaves my side, it has become my new best friend.. if they add a property to listen to audiobooks too? well, then it would be wonderful, I do hope they do that someday.. it already has speakers and mp3 ability on it, so why not?
Kindle Review With An Eye On Bible Study March 12, 2008
23 out of 30 found this review helpful
So, here it is. I've been using the Amazon Kindle just a few short weeks and it has certainly beat out any expectations I had. It's not perfect, but we'll get into that. There are plenty of other reviews of the Kindle out there, but this one is with a focus on using the Kindle as a Bible study tool.
What Kind of Books Can You Put on the Kindle
From the Kindle you can browse the current selection of books offered at Amazon.com for the device. I will say at this point, the selection of "Christian" books is fairly slim although I don't necessarily read the types of Christian books you would find in the Christian book store. A nice feature to the Kindle is the ability to put your own books on it. There are lots of free books that you can download in html or pdf format that you can put on your Kindle simply by email them as attachments to yourdevicename@free.kindle.com. A few minutes later, you will get an email back from Amazon with a properly formatted azw file to download to your Kindle via USB. I've found quite a few books at ccel.org that I've been meaning to read through but haven't because I didn't want to read them on my desktop computer. Here's a quick overview of the process:
1. Download a book to your computer.
2. Compose an email to yourdevicename@free.kindle.com and add the PDF file as an attachment.
3. Plug in your Kindle to your computer with the USB cable.
4. After you get an email from Amazon with the azw file attached, download that attachment directly to the "documents" directory on your Kindle. That's it!
What Does the Kindle Mean For Bible Study
I have two versions of the Bible on my Kindle, the NASB and the ESV. Both of them have very awkward navigation methods. When you open the Bible, you start on whatever page you last left off on. This is difficult because if you are in the middle of a chapter, you will have no idea what chapter you are in or what book you are in. The book/chapter reference is not displayed anywhere on the screen except at the beginning of a chapter. The way around this is to change your habits a little and make full use of the search feature. When you want to read Ephesians 3, simply hit search then type in eph3 and hit enter. You probably won't be as fast jumping around the Bible on the Kindle as you would with a paper Bible but once you get the hang of it you won't have any problem keeping up with sermons or Bible studies where the leaders jump from passage to passage. If you know you are going to be in three or four passages and want to flip back and forth between them, you can bookmark each one and jump between bookmarks easily.
I've touched on the cons of using the Kindle for Bible study, now for the pros. Search-ability. Can't remember that verse you were reading earlier? Type in a word or two and you're all set. This comes in handy when you're away from a computer. You can also search any notes you've typed into the device, so if you are taking notes for a particular study, it might be good to tag your notes. For example, my Bible study group is going through Desiring God, so I'll use the term "DG#" to indicate a particular note is for a chapter # in the Desiring God study. This is nothing new, you can do all this from any computer, but having it in a device that weighs almost nothing and has a battery that lasts close to a week is pretty cool. Searching will look through every book/note on your Kindle but the first result comes from the book you are currently reading.
A Few Tips
For any Kindle owners, here are a few things I've picked up during my use:
* All of your notes are stored as txt files so you can download them to your desktop and read through them.
* Don't wait for the screen. The redrawing of the screen takes about 0.5 seconds but the Kindle will buffer any commands you give it during the redraw period. For example, if you know how many clicks of the scroll wheel it takes to get to the "Add Note" command you can click on that and begin typing your notes before the screen catches up with you. You can get really fast if you trust yourself and command the Kindle before waiting for the screen to catch up. Typing is similar. Don't wait for your letters to appear, just type away and don't wait for the screen to catch up.
* You can press the Next Page and Prev Page buttons multiple times before the screen redraws. So, if you know you want to jump three pages away, press the Next Page button three times quickly and you will jump that many pages away without having to redraw each page along the way.
* Make good use of the search function, it's much faster than navigating.
* If you create your own books, be mindful of the title you use, if you are creating a reference book, you may want to add a "ZZ" to the beginning of the title, that way all books that start with ZZ will be at the back of your list.
* Keyboard shortcuts are very helpful. Learn em. A list is here.
* You can take screenshots on the Kindle and make them your screensaver. I took a screenshot of a passage in 2 Peter that I've been memorizing and now it is my screensaver so I can memorize it.
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