Five Good Reasons to Own a Kindle

My recent travels allowed me another opportunity to really put my Kindle to the test. (Because I live in Canada, several of its best features are only available to me when I head south of the border.) And having done so I can’t deny that I like it better than ever. Beyond the benefits I laid out in my recent review of the Kindle [2], here are five good reasons to own one.

Thousands of Free Books

Just about any book that is available in PDF (Adobe Acrobat) or in e-book format can be read on your Kindle. That gives you a vast library to build upon.

If you would like to build your library of Christian classics, visit CCEL [3]. Browse through the library and download any of the books in PDF format. You can download books by Edwards, Bunyan, Augustine, Chesterton and just about any other classic author you can think of. There are literally thousands of titles there for the taking.

If you are a fan of John Piper, visit Desiring God [4] and download any of Piper’s books for free in PDF format.

If you would like to catch up on classics or just browse other free e-books, visit Feedbooks [5]. They have thousands of great titles available, all of them entirely free. Go there to download your fix of Orwell, Austen, Dickens, Tolstoy, Hawthorne…

How do you get these books to your Kindle? Easy. When you buy a Kindle, Amazon gives you an email address (your-username@kindle.com). Simply email the file to your address. Amazon will covert it and for $0.10 send it immediately and wirelessly to your Kindle. Want to save the dime? Then send the file to your-username@free.kindle.com. Amazon will convert the file (for free) and send it back to you via email (for free). You then simply copy it to your Kindle using the USB cable.

Buy Books Anywhere and Anytime

While enjoying a brief break at a recent conference, and while sitting in the back row of a university chapel, I felt the urge to buy a new book that I could enjoy while traveling home (and something that would be a little lighter to read than the Banner of Truth titles I had stuffed into my suitcase!). Within sixty seconds, using nothing but my Kindle, I had purchased a book and had begun reading it. Just like that. Using your Kindle you have access to well over 100,000 books at any time and any place.

You will also never have to worry about books going out of stock. When books run out of stock at Amazon or your local bookstore, they are always available on the Kindle. Anywhere, anytime. When the books go out of print, I suppose they’ll still be available for download to your Kindle.

Check Your Email Anywhere—For Free!

Many people pay a lot of money for the ability to check their email via their cell phone. With the Kindle you can actually check your email remotely and entirely free wherever you can get a Sprint cell phone connection. The same technology that allows you to purchase books anywhere allows you to check email anywhere. And it’s entirely free. You may wish to purchase the $3 e-book How to Use the Amazon Kindle for Email & Other Cool Tricks: Read and Answer Email Anywhere, Anytime on the Amazing Amazon Kindle… to read instructions on how to do this (and to learn some other interesting tips and tricks…like how to play Minesweeper on your Kindle).

Free Wireless Internet Everywhere

It’s true—you can use the Kindle to surf the web wirelessly…anywhere. Anywhere serviced by Sprint, at any rate. Granted it’s not going to look wonderful since the Kindle does not do color and isn’t meant to display pretty graphics, but it you want to visit sites you like to read (and remember, the Kindle is a reading device) you can do so from anywhere using the same cellular service for which everyone else pays $60/month.

Read the Bible

A quick search turned up at least eight different Bible translations already available for the Kindle (ESV, KJV, NIV, NASB, etc). They all cost less than $10. This article [6] outlines some good suggestions for using the Kindle for Bible study. As with any other book, you can take notes, highlight passages, search for words and phrases and otherwise interact with the text of Scripture.