Mad Money Machine

Kindle 2 Announced. Should you buy?

Amazon announced the upgrade to their Kindle ebook reading device today. Get in line to buy one if you want. I just sold my old one yesterday. I will probably not be buying the new one because I think for $359 I can buy a heck of a lot of books. Or I can buy a netbook and not only read books on it but also surf the internet and get my email.

I owned the Kindle 1 for about a year. I purchased a total of 3 books for it. Yet I had about 100 books on the gadget. How? I used software called mobipocket to convert pdf files to the format the Kindle likes. Many sites on the internet allow you to download free public-domain books. I also didn’t purchase many books because many times the books I wanted to read were not available at Amazon for the Kindle. And if I could get the book from the library, I actually think I prefer the hardback version to the electronic version, possibly because I get immediate feedback of where I am in the book just by feeling it.

I do like the idea that I can carry a stack of thousands of books around on one device. I like that my home is not as cluttered with books. But I’m thinking that if I can find a great pdf reader for the iphone, I’ll just use that instead.