Shopperazzi: Should you buy the Kindle? We tell you

If your idea of a day well spent is being immersed in the pages of a book, buying a Kindle is, as they say, a no-brainer. But why? We tell you.

Putting the bells and whistles aside, Kindle is the closest experience you will have to holding a book made of papyrus in your hand, and then some.

It is thinner and lighter (200 grams) than most books, has got the optimum size (roughly as big as the palm of your hand), has a superb backlit screen which incredibly looks more paper than paper. Really does!

I, for one, for a long time, have been averse to the idea of reading a book from a screen. For, I had held, the experience of holding a book and turning the pages of paper is a sacred, almost spiritual, experience and cannot be replicated.

That is, until I went through the Kindle ritual. As cited above, not only is the look of the pages surprisingly ’bookish’, even flipping the pages from any part of the screen is as intuitive as in a book.  And, you can save on the saliva too!

The other winner is that Kindle is meant for long form reading, it doesn’t burn your eyes and is in fact incredibly very easy on the eye, if you know what I mean. This is a far cry from the reading experience from a normal laptop or a table or a phablet, where the glare has the tendency to sandpapers your eyes.

The backlit technology has another, maybe unintended, benefit. Unlike other devices where the glare from the screen in a dark room can be disconcerting for others about to get their eight hours of the dreamless, the Kindle is well behaved. You don’t pepper the room with a searchlight.

The battery doesn’t last weeks as the product promises, because that is calculated at 30 minutes per day of use. But even at 2-hour use per day, a single charge lasts you a full week at the minimum. You really can’t complain with that, can you?

You can also personalise your reading experience, change the fonts, the size, the brightness. Extremely useful this, especially to senior citizens or those who are more comfortable with larger typesets.

But, for me what clinches the deal is that, one, that the wait is over; and two, the discounts over the hard copy books.

It is a surreal feeling when you realise that the whole universe of books is open to you at the click of a button. Most books are not only available but can be downloaded in minutes, if not seconds. So, bye, bye waiting.

Not that I will read all the books (which will take many lifetimes), but the very fact that potentially any book in the world is a click and some rupees away, is like having a bookstore right at home. The only caveat being that you need a credit card and a wifi connection.

Plus, most ebooks come with at least a 20 per cent or more mark down on the listed price. Over time, while you may not completely recover the cost of the device, there is an evident upside in terms of comfort and convenience.

A surprisingly huge cache of classics are available on the Kindle ebook store without paying a penny.

If you have cottoned on, then you can buy the device from amazon.in at Rs 10,999 for the Kindle Papperwhite with wifi. And, Rs 13,999 for the 3G version, if you want to download books on the go.