Amazon Kindle Touch

The Amazon Kindle Touch is one of the most amazing gadgets I've ever had so far. I got it in the hopes that I would start reading more. 

Reading is to the mind what
Exercise is to the body

A week spent with my Kindle and so far I have read every night, even if it's just a few pages before I go to bed. That's probably a success in my books. I bought the Kindle and not the Paperwhite or Voyage for a few reasons. Due to the problems of purchasing outside of USA, I didn't want to spend over US$100 and end up not being able to get it or buy books on it. So I went for the simplest model I could find just in case. One of the big differences between the Kindle and the Paperwhite/ Voyage is that the Kindle doesn't have a light. In other words, you cannot read in the dark. Now I thought about that point and thought, it's probably not good for my eyes if I read in the dark. That said, the technology used is supposed to allow you to read without eyestrain even in the dark. Moving on, the Kindle is wifi enabled, Paperwhite/ Voyage have wifi and 3G (3G only works with AT&T so if you're not in USA then it's pretty pointless). Main things you would require the connection for is to download books or to look words up in the dictionary. Considering all these differences, I got the Kindle. Most basic unit, figuring that if I did want, I could upgrade to a better one later.

One of the strongest points about the Kindle is its Glare-Free Screen. The 6" screen actually looks just like a page in a book. It's amazing how they're managed to accomplish this but they have. The battery lasts for up to 4 weeks for this model (half a day of reading with wireless off). It is also extremely light and easy to hold. You can look up words, stuff about characters or the book and even translater. It's really quite fantastic. You can adjust the font size or darkness to suit. The device has 4G of storage, that's essentially thousands of books. What's not to love?! 

At first I was quite confused about the advertisements when the screen was on standby, then I realised that if you held the button for a few seconds, you can turn the screen off and it will be just white with no advertisement.

One of the obstacles faced is that the Kindle is only available in USA. You cannot buy it online even, unless you're in USA. Now that's just great isn't it? I had to do a lot of research on how to go about this and get what I need. I've summarised the steps here for your convenience should you decide you want to get your hands on one.

1. Create an Amazon account. For all purposes, you need to choose USA as the location.
2. Amazon will not ship the Kindle to any other countries so you require a shipping service. I like to use Borderlinx as they have proven to be reliable and charge reasonable rates. Once you sign up with Borderlinx, they will give you a USA and UK address. You will use this USA address as the address in your Amazon account. Borderlinx will not require you to choose USA as your location, you can put your actual details in there so that your item can be delivered to your home/office/other desired location.
3. Once your Amazon account is set up with the USA address provided by Borderlinx, you should now purchase an Amazon Gift Card. You can select the value you require to purchase your Kindle. Kindle is US$79, Kindle Paperwhite is US$119 and the new Kindle Voyage is US$199. (prices based on regular prices when this post was written, not the sale prices advertised.)
4. Once you get the email with your gift card redemption code, you can log into your Amazon account and redeem your gift card, the value will be loaded into your account. Purchase your Kindle through the Gift Card, not through your non-USA credit card. 
5. They will ship it to your shipping service provider (Borderlinx in my case) and Borderlinx will dispatch it to you.

This sounds like a hassle and it was at first because I had no idea what I was doing. But on hindsight, it wasn't actually that bad. Once you have received your kindle, you have to purchase books through the Gift Card as well. I've read that once Amazon detects that you're purchasing through a non-USA credit card, it will block you from purchasing anything. So to be safe, just go through the gift card. You can reload your balance through the website. Here's the tricky part though. After reloading your gift card, you need to remove the credit card details from your Amazon account records. This will then make all purchases through your gift card balance and not your credit card. 

Alternatively, if you can find pdfs of the books you want, then you can just load them into your Kindle from your computer through the USB cable that is provided with the Kindle, that's free. 

All that considered, I still think it's a fantastic gadget and I especially like that it is not a tablet. Tablets have so many other functions (web browsers, games, etc) that it really distracts me from reading. I want to focus on reading and obviously have trouble. This gadget helps me get away from all the distractions and get down to the books. You can read more about what the Kindle can do on Amazon.