Amazon Kindle is a great product. Why?
Why Kindle and not iPad or other smart devices
First of all, there are many kinds of Kindle. What I would recommend is Amazon Kindle PaperWhite.
See the link below:
Kindle Paper While is equipped with backlight. There is a cheaper version without backlight which may be adequate for most purpose: Amazon Kindle.
I am pretty sure you can't tell the difference looking at the pictures except that the one without backlight, the price is at least $20 cheaper. At the time I write this, it's $40 cheaper.
Each of these are with options of with or without Special Offer and WiFi vs "WiFi + 3G".
If you don't like those Ads, before you add to Cart, you just click on "Without Special Offers" and you will see the price increases. (For now, $20). Similarly, you can choose a "Wifi + Free 3G" version. But I don't think those are necessary if you have WiFi at home. In addition, I am not sure whether the Free3G would work.
If you want a higher end version, you can purchase Kindle Voyage!
As you can see, it's $100 more. I am sure Voyage is a better product, but I don't see why I want to fork out more money as Kindle PaperWhite 6" with backlight will meet my purpose. I will go for 2 Amazon Kindle Paperwhite devices instead of one Kindle Voyage.
So, my recommendation would be
1) Kindle Paper with Backlight. ( I find that with Backlight, the brightness can be adjusted to ambient light), easy to eyes.
For your convenience, let me copy the link again:
------------------ I bought this ---------------------------------
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2) Kindle (no backlight, cheaper)
3) Voyage (if money is nothing to you)
However, Kindle Fire looks like a normal smart device and not as smooth to the eyes for me. Unlike the rest, this one has color and equip with normal LCD with stronger backlight. Knowing that kids may read books for long hours, I really don't recommend these.
------------- I don't recommend this one for long serious reading-------------------
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My eyes will get tired easily reading iPad or other conventional LCD display. I believe if the device strain my eye, it will definitely harmful to my children, if they were to spend long hours reading from those device.
For parents who will be approaching 40s, you may want to buy another device for yourself. You will find this helpful because you can "zoom" and choose a larger font. I find it easier to read from Kindle compared to books! I have 2 devices, all with same user ID. My kids can read from one device, I can read from the other. If the kids want to read together, they can borrow mine, and thanks to Technology, Kindle will show you where you stopped at another device when you read the same book! Isn't it amazing? For none native speaker, Kindle comes with a dictionary, where you can look up the meaning by just pressing the word!
Again, Kindle is not sold outside US. You can't buy these if you are located in Singapore or Malaysia. For those of you in Singapore, you can try Qo010.sg.
I bought mine in US when I was there. Again cheaper. Wonder why things are so expensive in Singapore or Malaysia. And I also created my US account on Amazon when I was there. I bought Amazon Card for the book purchase. See my next post about eBook purchase. Having US account will be much more convenient for me. If you stay in Japan or UK, you can consider having an account of Amazon Japan or Amazon UK.
