Why I (Finally) Bought A Kindle

It has been a little over a month ago when I finally caved-in and bought an e-reader – which was mainly influenced by my girlfriend who for months never failed to convince me and gave reasons on why it's a good buy.

These e-readers have been around for some time now but I have always resisted the idea of having one not only because I truly enjoy the sensation of flipping through the pages of a physical book but also because reading to me is one of those pockets of time in my day that I religiously allot away from a screen. There's also a different feeling of holding a physical book, it's like there's some level of realness and seriousness that comes with it which I thought cannot be captured by reading a book on an electronice device.

Ease of access

At the start of this year, I enthusiastically made a list of all the books that I wanted to read for the year. However, fast-forward to September, I still haven't read even a single book from that list – not because I lost the spur to read but because it has been a challenge to find these books in any of the bookstores around. It got to a point that I was rereading the same 2-3 books in rotation for a couple of months because I have nothing else to read.

This is why the biggest selling point of having an e-reader to me is the fact that I can literally have any book that I want in just a few minutes. There's also no more second-guessing, even if you have an obscure taste in books there's a good chance that Amazon have it.

It only does one thing but it does it really well

Of course, you can read books from your phone, tablet, or computer. But these devices comes with a lot of things that can easily pull your attention to other directions. Add that to the fact that these devices subjects your eyes to thousands of mini LEDs which you are already doing while at work.

Kindle on the other hand uses an e-ink to display the texts which doesn't cause as much eyestrain even for long periods of reading. Aside from the obvious differences, Kindle does a decent job emulating the experience of reading a physical book – the texts do look like it's coming from a real paper.

Other advantages

• The built-in dictionary is a nice touch
• Paperless
• Portability
• Battery life of 3-4 weeks

Books have been a big part of my life this past decade and it continues to do so. And buying a Kindle is one of the best decisions I made this year because it opens up all kinds of book options which is difficult (if not impossible) to do with physical books.

However, this seamless access to a vast array of books doesn't come without any potential problems. As with a lot of other things, having a lot of options isn't always a good thing. If you're not careful, you could end up with a lot of unfinished books because you jump from one thing to another so quickly. Or worse, you could end up overthinking and spending most of your time looking for something to read rather than reading itself.