Image by IslesPunkFan via Flickr
I’ve had my Kindle Fire since last Wednesday, which means I have yet another distraction to keep me from writing. Add it to the list of: work, second job, studying, Facebook, real books, adorable cats, eating, showering, sleeping, horse races, magazines and random shiny objects.
I had mixed feelings about using an e-reader, because I have a hard time really reading anything on the computer screen, but I am loving it. I think the key is that I am able to turn the pages instead of scrolling. When I have to scroll through a document, my eyes glaze over and I end up skimming rather than reading: I think it’s because I lose my place in the text too easily. I’m used to seeing text one page at a time and the Kindle Fire provides that for me.
So far, my biggest problem has been: what do I call it? If I just say “Kindle” does that imply the device is simply an e-reader? If I say “Fire” does it sound weird (“Have you seen my Fire?”)? Do I really have to say “Kindle Fire” every time, thereby wasting precious seconds of my life?
Whatever I call it, this is a dandy little device. I still prefer viewing websites on my laptop, and the tiny virtual keyboard does not lend itself to creating large amounts of text, but I love the convenience and speed of being able to turn on the Fire to quickly check my email or Facebook. If I’m in the mood to read, there are books; if I want to take a break and play a game, there’s an app for that. I haven’t uploaded my music to the Amazon Cloud Player yet (which will allow me to access it via the Fire) but I have tried the Amazon Prime free video streaming service (“No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!” — you’ve gotta love any piece of technology that lets you watch Monty Python anywhere there is a wireless connection). I bought one digital magazine, just to try out the format, but I can safely say that print magazines are definitely for me. Maybe on a larger screen, like an iPad, but the Fire screen is just too small for me to read a full magazine page, and zooming and scrolling around the page is just too annoying. But for the price, I’m willing to forego digital magazines (besides, I already have physical subscriptions to the digitally available magazines I would be interested in).
