I got one for Christmas after saying I didn't really think I'd use it, boy was I wrong. Basically, it's an electronic book device, uses digital ink technology so battery drain is very low. I recharged it for an hour on Christmas day and it's been running ever since, probably spent 15 hours on it at least since then.
Primarily, it's a book reader. You can buy books off of amazon right on the device, brand new hardbacks cost about 10 bucks, older stuff generally costs less. Most of the books are only 5-6 dollars. There is a pretty wide selection, anything published in the last 10 years is available and most of the older classics are also available, if you can buy it off of amazon.com you can usually buy it through the kindle store. You can have any word or acrobat file converted into a kindle readable file and sent to your kindle for a small fee (it's like 25 cents I think). You can also buy newspapers and get subscriptions to magazines and such for it, most newspapers cost about 10 cents. The kindle does have a limited storage capacity but you can put an SD card in, and the store remembers what you've bought so you can delete old books and put them back on later if you want to read them again.
It can access the internet through cell towers, it can read any website but I haven't found a way to post through it yet. Websites with tabular layouts (mostly forums or older sites) screw with the page system and are difficult to navigate, but it handles wikis well. It also contains a comprehensive dictionary and thesaurus , you can look up any word you see in the text instantly.
TL;DR:
Pros:
-Books significantly cheaper and easier to obtain through kindle store, if you read a lot it'll be worth it. There's even a widening selection of college textbooks available on it.
-Ridiculously long battery life
-Full internet access from virtually any location.
-Full Oxford dictionary, thesaurus
-You can mark a page, make notations of important quotes or information and save them in a separate area for later use.
Cons:
-Doesn't function well with tabular layouts
-The next page button is fucking annoying, it's too big and if you're trying to read with one hand you'll accidentally change the page a million times.
-Can't display any sort of flash or otherwise mobile/dynamic web content.
-In a post apocalyptic world without electricity you will eventually lose your content, can't even burn it for warmth unlike a conventional book.
Primarily, it's a book reader. You can buy books off of amazon right on the device, brand new hardbacks cost about 10 bucks, older stuff generally costs less. Most of the books are only 5-6 dollars. There is a pretty wide selection, anything published in the last 10 years is available and most of the older classics are also available, if you can buy it off of amazon.com you can usually buy it through the kindle store. You can have any word or acrobat file converted into a kindle readable file and sent to your kindle for a small fee (it's like 25 cents I think). You can also buy newspapers and get subscriptions to magazines and such for it, most newspapers cost about 10 cents. The kindle does have a limited storage capacity but you can put an SD card in, and the store remembers what you've bought so you can delete old books and put them back on later if you want to read them again.
It can access the internet through cell towers, it can read any website but I haven't found a way to post through it yet. Websites with tabular layouts (mostly forums or older sites) screw with the page system and are difficult to navigate, but it handles wikis well. It also contains a comprehensive dictionary and thesaurus , you can look up any word you see in the text instantly.
TL;DR:
Pros:
-Books significantly cheaper and easier to obtain through kindle store, if you read a lot it'll be worth it. There's even a widening selection of college textbooks available on it.
-Ridiculously long battery life
-Full internet access from virtually any location.
-Full Oxford dictionary, thesaurus
-You can mark a page, make notations of important quotes or information and save them in a separate area for later use.
Cons:
-Doesn't function well with tabular layouts
-The next page button is fucking annoying, it's too big and if you're trying to read with one hand you'll accidentally change the page a million times.
-Can't display any sort of flash or otherwise mobile/dynamic web content.
-In a post apocalyptic world without electricity you will eventually lose your content, can't even burn it for warmth unlike a conventional book.