Friday, May 13, 2011

My First eReader

At the end of April, 2008, I got my first Kindle. It cost $400.00 and it totally changed my life.

I had been a avid reader since childhood, but my vision was starting to deteriorate. I had seriously minimized my reading due to the headaches and discomfort that it caused.

People who hear me talk about eReaders now would be very surprised to learn how I struggled with the decision to buy that first device. Like many avid readers, I too loved the physicality of the reading experience, the touch and the feel of a book. But, at the end of the day, it all boiled down to the fact that I was just tired of not being able to read.

I was also worried about the technology quickly becoming obsolete. I have been an early adopter of various tech devices before and know how quickly that it can change. I lived on Amazon's Kindle forums for a while, and listened to the experiences and the stories that users told. (As I recall, at that time, the first wave of Kindles had sold out and the second wave was ready for shipping.)

I really was like a kid in a candy store in the first days with my new Kindle. It only took a few minutes to get the operations down. I then started loading up the device with many of my favorite books. I bought digital versions of all of Anne McCafferty's books. I re-read Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Artur's Court and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan. I discovered horror writer Scott Sigler. In short, I was in heaven because I could read again! And I haven't really looked back.

I am currently the proud owner of two Kindle 1 readers and my K3, the graphite latest generation 3G Kindle. I also read on a Sharper Image Literati and on a Kindle for Android app on my Samsung Galaxy Tab Wi-Fi. 

Nowadays, when I have to pick up a Dead Tree Book (DTB), it is almost a foreign experience to me. It's like going back to a typewriter after using a computer. Definitely feels odd to me. Even though it has only been three years since I started using an eReader, I just cannot imagine living without one.

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