Many of you have been asking me about my Kindle device - the price, how useful I think it is, which one to choose for yourself. Let me answer some of those questions now, I hope they can be of help to you. I am going to focus on the features I use as a student and those I find useful on a day-to-day basis.
First and foremost, the question concerning the utility of the device. Personally I use it A LOT!!! With each Kindle you get an account on Amazon (which produces Kindle) - as soon as you register you get 7 monolingual dictionaries for free (Oxford English, American English, French, Spanish, German, Portugese and Italian). These dictionaries are an up-to-date, solid base for any student of linguistics and actually if you were to buy paperback verions, you would already pay twice as much as for your Kindle device.
You can also get all the classics on these languages for free - Shakespeare, Austen, Rabelais, Hugo, Cervantes, Alarcón... You name it. That is very convenient - all you need is make a list and there you have all the obligatory books for your classes in one place.
There are many offers on Amazon permitting you to download free ebooks, but you can also use websites that are dedicated to searching such books for you, for instance KindleBuffet. If you are looking for an ebook in Polish... Well, you know where to look for free PDF files (WINK WINK), and Calibre is a great software to convert any text format (.doc; .pdf; etc.) to a Kindle format (.mobi) in a very simple, user-friendly way. As easy as apple-pie. Also, it is possible to display scanned materials from our Institute library on the pdf, which is a life-saver if you need a book that cannot be taken out of the library.
IF I WANT TO BUY AN E-READER, WHICH ONE DO I CHOOSE?
Let me help you with that: You have to be VERY SPECIFIC what you need your Kindle for and what are your needs as a reader. There is a lot to choose from and, naturally, Kindle isn't the only option, there are other firms. I would recommend Kindle as it is linked to Amazon and you get a lot of things for free, the customer service is great (I tried :) ) and Amazon lauches new generations of e-readers each year. You can browse the models for yourself HERE. Currently the newest generation is Kindle Fire which is sth between an e-reader and a tablet, apparently. I actually don't get the point - why wouldn't you just buy a tablet then?...
ANYWAY... So before I went shopping for an e-reader I focused on what I wanted to have. I needed a light, easy-to-use device with e-ink technology (and e-paper). Why? Because under the stream of sunlight you can actually read comfortably everything that is written and the battery holds for over a month (LCD screens are cheaper, but you have to charge every few hours and they make your eyes feel sore and tired). I was sure I also wanted the version where the screen would react to my touch - I wanted a reading experience as similar to reading an actual book as possible. So I decided to buy Kindle Touch - a simple, perfect match for my needs. If you want to connect to social media, watch TV series or browse the internet on your device, you should probably go with the new generation devices, however.
ADDITIONAL OPTIONS THAT I FIND USEFUL: After a tiresome day I find it useful to have an option to enlarge the font and change the density of words per page. You can highlight some passages and it will be automatically saved in a seperate file. You can share highlighted passages on Facebook, Twitter or on your blog (I've never used it, though). It has a wireless connection, so you don't need to connect it to a computer to download a book. I have downloaded a few audiobooks (again, free :P ) while I was shopping at Stary Browar. It has a text-to-speech option in English, so if you've downloaded a legitimate copy of a book, you can turn it on and it will read out loud the text for you - a bit like Ivona, but it SO MUCH less creepy, robot-like and artificial. I find it useful to be able to tap on a word in English, French or Spanish while reading a book and the definition just pops up. Makes it SO comfortable to read in a foreign language.
The whole post seems like an advertisement of Kindle, which might seem a bit over the top and out there. But it's just because I really do think it's useful and fun and the best device there is when it comes to e-readers. I hope I was able to help at least one person with their choice :)) Please feel free to comment down below on the post. If you have any further questions, I will be happy to answer them here or in person.
Cheery bye!!
P.S. I am still new to blogging, but I put some links for you in the text, I hope they are visible and that they work.
