617 of 639 people found the following review helpful:

new Kindle – brilliant!, 28 Oct 2011

So after reading a lot of the negative reviews, I still went & bought a new Kindle yesterday & glad I didn’t just base it on the negative comments – these are some of my reasons:

I bought it to read books on. When was the last time you bought a book and expected it to do anything else other than have pages in it with words on it. Yes, I know that they have some of these other features, and people may like them – however it is an e-reader. Use it as one & you will be happy with it. Try use it for anything else & you may end up being disappointed.

1st impressions of it – not much to it & it just works.
I don’t care about having audio – I buy books to read, not to have them read to me (that’s what an MP3 player is for & is good at)
I don’t care that the browser may not work (that’s what a PC/Mac/iPad etc.., are used for and they are good at it)

Some people say that the text is not as crisp or clear as a book, or it doesn’t have the same feel as a book – bah humbug to you. It’s not a book. If you want to hold a book & have the same feel as a book – please buy a book.

A few people complained about the lack of a keyboard & that the new controller was a problem – really? I got my 8yr old daughter to try it out last night and she had no issues. I can only suspect that people having issues either have a defective unit, or maybe don’t have the finger dexterity that they would need. Anyone familiar with using a mobile phone should have no problems using this new interface. Besides, for people who never mark up anything and only want to read (like me), you’ll probably never need to use the keyboard after the initial setup very often anyway.

To those of you who are complaining about the price differences between the UK & the US – get over it. yes, there is a $79 version (roughly £52), however you still have to pay tax in the US, so you can add at least another £5 – £10 to this price depending on which state you live in. Did anyone also read that the cheapest one comes with advertising & sponsored screensavers? those companies are effectively subsidising the cost of the Kindle to us end users. Take the Kindle that is exactly the same that we buy here & you’re see it’s actually $109 plus tax. So there is not much difference in cost at all really, other than we are unable to buy a version that is subsidised by corporate advertising. Not really an Amazon issue or an issue with the Kindle itself – please leave feedback on the actual product, and not about why you won’t be buying it because of cost.

I love the reduced packaging as I have less to throw away and there is just a little bit left of the world that hasn’t needed to have been dug up/processed just to make a product look nicer for us. I guess some people are expecting more when they open it up & feel deflated when all they get is what they bought plus a cable. No longer do we see a mass of eco unfriendly packaging, pull out nicely packaged cables/connectors & power supply, then get to go through a heap of booklets in different languages & then finally after the excitement & anticipation has built up you finally get to the actual Kindle. Sorry guys, it’s just not going to be like when you were a kid opening Xmas presents. Open the box & what you see is pretty much what you get – the Kindle, a cable & a thin 1 page guide to the device. Can’t get any better!

As for the power supply not being provided – why do we need yet another power supply? Another plus for those of us wanting to get companies to do their bit to help reduce our impact on the environment. Admittedly if you don’t own a PC, or have a mobile phone or any other device that has a USB connection or plug that can be used to charge a standard USB device, then you’ll need one. Is suspect this is a very small percentage of people though.

Some people complained that there were no instructions – ok, so they could have included a 1 line sentence on the paper guide they include saying that to turn it on for the 1st time, press & hold for 7 seconds. Once it’s turned on though, there is a Kindle user guide on the front screen, why do I need yet another printed copy of it that will only end up going in recycling! I got this to reduce the amount of printed literature I have.

Hope that helps, and please don’t let all the negative comments put you off – especially as most of them don’t actually relate to the product himself!

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