Can the New Amazon Kindle Reader Help Save You Cash?

The new Amazon Kindle ebook reader is, for me at any rate, a dream come true. Certainly, I would freely admit that, as someone who counts reading as one of my main pastimes, I must be very much Amazon’s target market. On average, I would expect to read an absolute minimum of one book a week – and it’s not unusual for me to have one novel, one non-fiction and any number of reference books under consideration at any one time.

I don’t believe that’s so spend quite a bit of cash on books. Apart from the financial side of things, my collection of books does tend to take up quite a bit of room at home. Once in a while I sift through the pile and, putting reference books and favourites to one side, have a bit of a tidy out. More often than not the books go to friends or charity shops.

I recently got rid of more than fifty volumes in advance of moving house. It wasn’t until I saw them all, bagged up and ready to go, that I realised I was looking at a sum of money of anywhere from $500 and $1000 which had built up in just under twelve months.

Now, whilst the Amazon Kindle is a fairly costly item in itself, the downloadable e-books from the Kindle store are usually quite a bit cheaper than the printed versions. After all, there are no printing and distribution costs for the publisher and no postage charges for Amazon. Even saving no more than a few dollars a book, which seems quite reasonable, anyone who reads on a regular basis could fairly quickly recover the cost of the device and then start to save money with time.

The potential benefits aren’t only financial. The Kindle 2 has a storage capacity for around 1500 e-books whereas the Kindle DX, which will begin shipping on June 10 2009, can accommodate 3500. That’s a lot of reading material – and a lot of physical storage space that will no longer be required in your home or office.

Some reviewers have suggested that the Kindle is a green, eco-friendly, device – based upon the fact that it will save on the usage of paper. It’s easy to see the logic, but obviously some consideration needs to be given to the materials used in production and also the manner in which the device will be disposed of when it reaches the end of its useful life.

The actual benefits achieved will vary from user to user and will probably depend chiefly on the number of books bought yearly. However, for keen readers, it does seem as if the Kindle can offer a variety of different advantages which should justify the initial purchase price.

Tagged as: Amazon kindle