I have experienced a hiatus this past year from full time employment. After our move to Texas, we have been dealing with home remodeling disasters and my hubby had a few surprise surgeries. There have also been many small business startup projects involved in transitioning my handmade jewelry from a hobby to a business.
Sometimes these obstacles have become so overwhelming, that I had to force myself to take a breather and revisit a relaxation technique from my youth. Reading!
Instead of hitting the library or begging friends for a book exchange “like in the olden days”, I went all modern and decided to investigate more of what my Kindle Fire could offer. (I still love hard copy books! I have 2 enormous bookcases full, even after recently donating several).
About 2 years ago, shortly before relocating, a college professor required a text in a business course which was no longer in print and only available via Amazon Kindle. I checked out Amazon’s $99 deal. I ultimately decided on the pricier Kindle Fire HDX 8.9″ 64 MB so that I could access WiFi and use it as a tablet. We are tech slow at my house and have never had a tablet before. No, not even an iPad!
Choosing between the iPad and Kindle was difficult. Almost everyone that I knew at that time all had the iPad. Only one friend had a Kindle. In researching the internet, and polling friends and colleagues about their devices, I opted for Kindle mainly because it was more economical and at that time, had a larger screen (8.9″ HDX touchscreen display, with 2560 x 1600 resolution at 339 ppi, 100% sRGB color accuracy, video playback up to 1080p, max brightness over 400 nits, Dynamic Image Contrast, reduced glare and advanced polarizing filter). I also didn’t want to have to install an Amazon Kindle app for an iPad to read my college textbook (the main reason for this purchase). This was at a time where I was clueless about the great menagerie of apps and my perception that process would be complicated.
This seems like such a lifetime ago, because both my husband and I now use the Kindle Fire for so much!
- We like to play the free versions of the admittedly addictive Tetris, Candy Crush and Soda Saga games, as well as my personal favorite game…book review requests from new authors or their marketing firms. That opened up a whole new genre to me that I never realized I might enjoy as a 42 year old hag, uh, I mean woman. Can you believe….young adult fiction? Me neither, but give it a try!
- We figured out how to “fling” movies from my Kindle onto the TV via our existing Amazon Fire TV box . It syncs beautifully. (I did feel as crazy as Gary Busey initially figuring this feature out- lol).
- Sometimes when I want to remember story time as a child, I like to be lazy and switch over to the text-to-speech feature which lets my Kindle read my book to me. (You don’t have to buy the expensive Audible versions of books. The Kindle voice isn’t as animated as a paid narrator, but it gets the job done).
- The camera is front and rear facing with tremendous clarity, so snapping photos or videos is easy and a handy alternative to my iPhone camera.
- When it is time to do a little work, I can even do marketing research and YouTube video training for my handmade jewelry business.
So, not only do I now thank the college professor for suggesting an out-of-print textbook (which I wasn’t so happy with at that time), but I also thank Amazon for creating this miracle device at an agreeable price (about $600 less than iPad in 2014). My Kindle has most of the same functionality as the ridiculously expensive and possibly overrated iPad. Eventually I will probably write a more informed comparison of the Kindle Fire HD vs. iPad; as I may still purchase an iPad later to use as a register for selling my jewelry at craft fairs in addition to my iPhone.
If you’re interested to know what books I have read on my Kindle, please leave a comment and I will post a blog list for you.
Have a sparkle-riffic day, everyone!
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Hi Monica! I love your pictures! You are so cute! I got an iPad for Christmas 2 years ago. I have the kindle app and have a few books on it, but I too love a good ole hardback book. I am trying to read thru a stack of those before I get back on the kindle app. Anyhoo, what books have you been enjoying on your kindle? Love reading your cute and clever blogs, you make me smile.
~Becki
Aw, hi sweet Becki!!! Glad to hear from you. I’ll post a list of some books I’ve been reading. There’s some vampire stories I’m trying to get through as research for a new jewelry line that some of my old Twilight fans are wanting me to do. So, that’s a little out there. lol. I’ve got tons of beading and entrepreneurial books in my Good Reads list that I’ve read and some still need to. I really love mystery, thriller and there are some young adult fiction that were surprisingly great referrals to me such as the Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard. I guess my favs are the classics like anything by Jane Austen. lol. I’m old school like that. I do enjoy getting research done for my jewelry peeps though. It’s interesting to read something I wouldn’t normally seek out and then sometimes find I like it. lol.