This week, I ordered a Kindle. It has been a long road to this point, full of bad logic and not a little bit of denial. For the past five years, I stubbornly resisted all e-readers. “It’s not the same as the way a real book feels in your hands,” I said. “You don’t get that old/new/slightly soggy book smell!” I said. “What will happen to that huge collection of old library books in the top of my closet?” I asked. “Carrying around heavy textbooks makes me feel like Hermione Granger!” I held. “The type on the Kindle application on my iPhone isn’t that small,” I insisted. “Skimming manually is more rewarding than the ‘find’ function!” I sputtered, “Paying more money for less functionality is how it should be!”
And so it went, until a few days ago, when I found myself holding my 7 pound laptop above my head reading the latest Stephanie Perkins novel on Amazon’s Cloud Reader because I couldn’t wait for the hard copy to come in. My aching arms, eyes and head all intervened to tell my sense of fidelity to the old system that I was being entirely ridiculous.
E-books are changing the market. Authors and publishers of popular fiction are beginning to write and sell their new novels with e-books in mind. More books are available digitally than ever before, and not just on the computer screen. This new way of consuming media is adding more to the reading experience than it is taking away.
You would think, after five years of deliberation and resistance, the decision to purchase an e-reader would be the hardest part of my journey. Or maybe you’re smarter than I and realize the e-reader market has exploded while I’ve been in my cave of technophobia. By now, practically every company that makes books or electronics has an e-reader on the market, though Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook remain the biggest contenders among e-readers with e-ink technology, no matter how much the iPad might market itself toward bibliophiles.
I wanted to go with Amazon’s Kindle over the Barnes & Noble Nook for several reasons, but mainly because, hey, I get the majority of my books from Amazon anyway. Indeed, with the recent closing of Borders, I can’t help but be wary of the future of the bookstore model in general. So I clicked on Amazon’s Kindle page, and that’s when I began driving everyone around me crazy. Turns out, there are six different kinds of Kindles. One doesn’t simply buy Kindle. No, first, one must answer several questions. And then, there still may not be a clear choice.
First, decide whether you want 3G on your Kindle so you can download a new book anytime, anywhere. Is the convenience worth the extra money? Next, you need to determine how important it is to you that the buttons to turn the page on your Kindle are physical buttons, rather than a touch screen. Then, you need to decide how you want the keyboard to pop up. Do you want a physical keyboard, a touch screen keyboard or one controlled by a D-pad? How important is easy note-taking to you? Finally, after all that, you have to resist being lured in by Amazon’s new Kindle Fire, which is Amazon’s answer to the tablet computer, fully-loaded yet still geared toward books with free 3G, unlike Apple’s iPad. But the screen isn’t run by e-ink technology and you don’t want that for reading for long periods. No, really. You don’t.
Personally, I decided having 3G was more important than having physical buttons and that a touchscreen keyboard was perfect. I’ll have my new Kindle Touch 3G in my hands within the next few weeks, and I’ll begin fully participating in the new world electronic readers have brought. And maybe someday I’ll get that Kindle Fire, too…
Whitney Knight is a sophomore majoring in English education. She can be contacted at opinion@reflector.msstate.edu.