Reading on Kindle

Published on by Margaret

There are many advantages to reading on a Kindle – mainly because it’s easy to use:

  • because of instant purchase. I can see a book I’d like to read and have it within seconds. That can also be a disadvantage because it’s so easy to get yet more books, without considering whether I do really want them.
  • because of ease of handling and enlarging the the font size. This is a big plus!
  • because I can pop it in to a bag to take with me anywhere and have a book on hand ready to read. It was perfect for taking to the hospital and reading whilst waiting for radiography, etc.
  • because I can highlight text without spoiling the book and make notes without using a separate notebook. Another great feature.
  • because I can organise the books into different collections, or in any other order – A-Z, recent additions and so on.
No doubt there are other advantages too that haven’t come to my mind right now, because there is one major disadvantage and that is that
  • I can’t see the books in front of me as I can with physical books on actual bookshelves.This means that it’s so easy to forget what I’ve downloaded.
  • It doesn’t help me that I am disorganised. I’ve said that it’s an advantage to be able to categorise the books and put them into collections- but it would help if I actually did that on a consistent basis. I don’t!
  • And I’ve downloaded over 100 samples – I don’t know how many because after I reached 104 samples I stopped recording them. It’s the ease of adding samples that messes it all up – once I’ve downloaded them, I forget all about them!! I might as well not bother.
  • I was reading on it this morning and it kept freezing. That’s another downside –
  • that and having to stop reading to recharge the battery when you’re in an exciting part of a book and just want to know what happens next.
Still, I wouldn’t want to be without it.

16 thoughts on “Reading on Kindle”

  1. I’m not wedded to my Kindle yet. I find I can’t see enough on the page. I like being able to flick back to important bits, and although I bookmark those I identify at the time, finding things you haven’t bookmarked is not so easy. If you turn the Wifi off when you’re not using it, the battery lasts a good while though I find. Glad you’re enjoying yours though!

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    1. Yes, that is annoying, not getting enough on a page when you increase the font size. My Kindle has a light with the cover and I find if I put the light on I can see the smaller font better. But that does decrease the battery use. I find the battery lasts longest when I have the wifi off, or when I don’t use it – ha, ha! 🙂 I’m not wedded to it either, but it is good for reading classics and I like being able to look up the definition of words too – even though the ones I really don’t know are not in the Kindle!

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  2. I love mine too. For all the reasons you list, but espeically the font size. It makes reading a book much easier and quicker for me.

    I’m with you on the downloading books and forgetting what you’ve got on there. I have them put away in collections and find I have to check occasionally to see what’s there. And sometimes I look at a title and think, ‘What on earth’s *that*?’ LOL.

    I haven’t done the samples thing and think I probably won’t because I can see me doing exactly the same as you.

    All in all, though I do love my Kindle.

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    1. Cath, I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks ‘˜What on earth’s *that*?’, especially when I’ve downloaded a free book! I think I may have to delete the samples! I’ll never get round to reading them.

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  4. I love my Kindle too, for all the reasons people have already mentioned, and it’s great for downloading classics (free from Project Gutenberg, which is fantastic if you have no cash!). But I daren’t read it in the bath! And, of course, I still have books, and still buy books, and still use the library, so it’s not reduced the number of printed volumes which come into the house – it just means there is more to read, and less time for housework!

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  5. I’m curious – how often do you have to charge your Kindle that you reach the point where the battery fails while reading? I have a Sony Reader and I have to charge it very rarely, even when I (ab)use it just for web-surfing.

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    1. The battery lasts a long time and I don’t have to charge it very often – but it’s usually when I’m reading and the message pops that the battery is getting low and needs re-charging.

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  6. Aha – I must ask, even thought it sounds as if your Kindle is a newer version than mine Mine’s just 11 months old, but it doesn’t warn me that the battery is low. It just dies. Since yours warns you..

    Anyway, I’ll give it a shot:
    1) HOW do you adjust the font size?(!)
    2) How do you organize your books into categories?

    I’ve searched around mine but I’m at a loss…Thanks for any help you can supply.
    (and yes, I hate losing track of what’s on my Kindle too)

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    1. Debbie, I’ve had mine 18 months – it’s the one with an integral keyboard below the screen. You adjust the font size by clicking on the Aa button. There is a ‘Collections’ option at the top of the screen. By clicking on the book title there is an option to add the book to a collection or to create a new collection. Maybe the Kindle Support on Amazon would explain this more clearly than I can!

      The message to recharge the battery can up whilst I was typing this.

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      1. Thanks so much, Margaret – you’ve explained very well & I’ve been able to carry out both actions.

        I don’t know why I didn’t think of using Kindle support (well, for collections I wouldn’t have known to ask). I guess I should have just fooled around with the Kindle itself some more myself.

        Anyway – thanks again!

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  7. I’ve had a Kindle for quite a while but rarely even look at it. I didn’t want one to begin with but a couple of authors I like very much are now only publishing e-books so I bought one. I’ve had the problem with the battery dying on me in an exciting part of the book, and I was away from home and couldn’t recharge it then. Very frustrating. I don’t like the fact that I can’t quickly flip pages back to check on something. I haven’t even used it enough to learn how to do bookmarking, etc. In short, it leaves me cold. I’ll stick with print books, thank you very much.

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    1. Barbara, I agree it’s annoying that you can’t flip through the pages easily, but I find using the Search is useful for this. I wouldn’t want the Kindle to completely replace books – I prefer print books to the Kindle, but I do like being able to enlarge the font and having lots of books at my fingertips! I also like the Search feature and use it as an index sometimes – which fiction books don’t have.

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  8. I really do like my Kindle, which has been a surprise to me, but I’m still buying books. It’s great for reading classics because the print tends to be small on old books or paperbacks. I do miss not being able to flick back as I would with a book though.

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  9. Katrina, at first it was just classics that I downloaded for just that reason and because most of the classics are so long and therefore such bulky books to hold – much easier to read on Kindle.

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