I never thought I would buy a Kindle! I wanted to buy an iPad for a while and I had been resisting up until now. The problem is I like to identify a need before going out and shelling that kind of money. Business-wise, I don't really need it. I either have my laptop or my iPhone with me and I don't see the iPad filling a need between the 2 devices. Home-wise, again between my AppleTV and my other computers I'm not sure I can justify yet another gizmo.

But it's easy to imagine that I have been looking for half-a-decent excuse to purchase another toy. And this is when it hit me. Sometimes I can be in a situation where I have to do a presentation which I did not know about in the morning. I might be without a PC or a printed copy of that presentation. So having a tablet with me would be very helpful. A good start... And then I realised I needed an ebook too. Something I could load with the latest book and bring to the beach.

Here was my excuse to buy an iPad. Or was it? This is when I thought of the Kindle. To be honest the Kindle always seemed to me like a poor brother of the iPad. After all, if you have an iPad you can read ebooks too right? Well it turned out to be quite not simple.

For once, loosing a £150 device is not the same thing as loosing a £500 one! Remember, it's for the beach. Then I read about all those users raving about ink technology. And I needed something for the beach! I know how hard it is to see the screen of my iPhone with my sunglasses on and I suspected that reading in full sunlight on the iPad would be a less than optimal experience. But what really made me decide for the Kindle was the 3G deal. Going for an iPad with 3G requires a monthly fee and it only works in your home country. Going for a 3G Kindle requires and extra £40 on purchase and then not only do you get free data for ever but also free free roaming!  Granted webkit on the device is slow (it's experimental after all...). The screen is black and white. But you can still check your mail for free, check a map or do a search on Google...

I've had the device for a few weeks now, and I can understand why it generates so much passion. Yes on paper it is an low tech device (Java based OS, Black & White screen, no extensibility, single purpose etc...) but what it does, it does so well. The screen is amazing, especially outdoors. The reading experience is wonderful, especially with the lighted leather cover (yes, I know, I spent a bit more that what I intended to in the first place...). I am rediscovering the joy of reading in bed.

But it's not just about reading books. You can get free newspapers from all over the world delivered automatically to your device every day. You just need to install Calibre and leave it running on your PC and it will scrape most news web sites and generate the appropriate ebooks automatically for you. Calibre will also allow you to convert PDF or ePub files into the native MOBI format supported by the Kindle. Even though the Kindle will render PDF files natively, converted files are easier to read since you dont need to zoom and pan.

And then free worldwide 3G data is the icing on the cake. You just need to setup a few bookmarks to force the Kindle to display the iPhone/iPad version of those sites you need to visit often and off you go! Here are the ones I use the most:

Google Search
Google Local Search
Gmail
Google Translate
Google Reader
Google News (you see the pattern...)
Twitter
Facebook

and the toolboxes...
Kinstant
Google Mobile Portal

I'm glad I made the plunge. Yes it's an underpowered device, yes it's not versatile but it's the best book reader out there!