When Amazon introduced the Kindle Fire, they also introduced two new Kindles – the Kindle and Kindle Touch. Some refer to the least expensive Kindle as the Kindle 4, but for purposes of this review, I will refer to the Kindle 4 as the Kindle.
The Kindle is $79.00 with ads and $109 without ads. I recommend buying the one with ads since the ads are not annoying, and you can always remove the ads later. It is 6″ tall and weighs less than 6 ounces. A woman can easily put the Kindle in her purse or it would fit into a coat jacket. It is E ink and a great single purpose eReader device.
You maneuver around the device by using five buttons on the bottom of the device and two buttons on each side. There is one large 5 way controller button to use as for scrolling. The left most button is the return button, the next button will bring up the keyboard, next is the controller button, next to that brings up the menu and the home button is the final button. The two top side buttons take you back a page, and the two bottom ones go forward a page.
This is not an audio Kindle. You cannot listen to Audible books or have the book read to you. It is an eReader only. You can view books in portrait or landscape, but you have to set it. You can do all the normal functions of a Kindle device such as change the font size, use WiFi, create collections for your books, sync with other collections, make notes, bookmark sections, highlight sections, share your notes via Facebook and Twitter and limited Internet access. You can purchase books on the Kindle when you have WiFi access.
But like every other device, no device is perfect. I initially bought this device by mistake as I clicked on the Kindle instead of the Kindle Touch. It is a little old school as I am used to touch devices, and this is not a touch device at all. That is my fault as the Kindle does not advertise itself as a touch device.
There is nothing cumbersome with the buttons until you need to use the keyboard. It is more like a DVR keyboard rather than an onscreen keyboard. You select a letter and then scroll over to the next letter. This is tedious. What I recommend is if you put your books into collections like fiction, travel, etc., I would create my collections on a computer and then sync those collections over to the Kindle.
I recommend the Kindle if you are looking for a basic eReader. If however, you have $20.00 more that you’re willing to spend, then wait until tomorrow’s review of the Kindle Touch.