Amazon Kindle Ebook Reader Review

Amazon's Kindle ebook reader redefines the category of products it belongs to, opening up a more obscure field of portable electronics to mainstream consumers. The ability to hold hundreds of books, access an online Amazon bookstore through a cellular network so you can purchase and download well known, bestseller ebooks directly and let you subscribe to newspapers, magazines and blogs makes this an extremely rich offering for hours of entertainment. The controls, while taking a little bit of getting used to, make the Kindle easy to use. The screen is also a joy to view with its easy to read text.

The Amazon Kindle, somewhere in size between a novel and hardback, weighs just 10.3 ounces and is 0.7-inches thin. The front side six-inch display uses a high-resolution display technology – electronic paper – to provide a screen easy to read with crisp, vivid text that's resizable via a button on the built-in keyboard.

Another important control which may not be immediately intuitive is the select wheel, used to scroll a silver rectangle. This rectangle, moved adjacent to portions of the display, selects on-screen information when the wheel is pushed in. This, as well as large previous and next page buttons on the front side and also a back button, let you navigate pages and sections of content.

Most impressively, the Kindle does not require a computer to download ebooks. It is tied to your Amazon account and lets you wirelessly access, via a high speed cellular data network, an online bookstore. You can purchase books by browsing, much like you do on Amazon's Web site. Purchases are quickly downloaded to your ebook reader for enjoyment.

Blogs, magazines and newspapers can also be downloaded for variable monthly subscription fees. These offerings are updated automatically by Amazon when the wireless is on. Things I found I liked during reviewing the Kindle include that it holds hundreds of books, lets you bookmark where you are in reading for later, offers a built-in dictionary to look up words and provides basic Internet browsing when you need it.

If you aren't happy with the thousands of books, newspapers, blogs or magazines, you can also add personal documents such as Word files and digital pictures. Note though the screen is black and white, so photos won't be color. It should also be noted there is no backlight on the Kindle, so you won't be able to view the screen at night. You can also load on here MP3 files, should you want music.