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By benjaminchristopher, January 11, 2010 9:00 am

As you read this, I am on a train traversing across the American landscape. I’ve got my laptop, a box of granola bars, and a one-way ticket.

And, of course, my Kindle.

Today, I’m moving from Chicago to Los Angeles. I’ve spent the last few months paring down my possessions, finding a temporary home for my cat, and getting rid of 83 percent of my books (to be exact). So for me, Christmas didn’t have the usual thrill of accumulating new possessions. In fact, I initially asked for “absolutely nothing.”

After thinking about it, I realized that my books were the one replaceable thing I was begrudgingly parting with. So what I asked for this Christmas, and what I got, was an Amazon Kindle 2.

For those of you who live under stones of varying sizes, the Kindle is an e-reader. A portable, electronic library. It’s the size of a paperback, as thin as a pencil, lighter than a can of coke, and can hold hundreds of books. The screen utilizes so-called “e-ink” technology. And it looks beautiful. It’s black and white, but easy on the eyes. It looks pretty dang close to paper, and I’ve read it for hours on end without the ache that comes from staring at my laptop. Keep in mind though, the lack of a back-light means you need some available light to read. Sort of like… What are those things called? Oh yeah, books.

The Kindle 2 has been out since early 2009. So why, you might be asking, is it on my list of the Top 5 Screens of 2010? Two reasons: One- I’d be willing to bet that most people who own a Kindle just got it over the holidays. Amazon reported that the Kindle was the “most gifted item ever” in Amazon’s history. And, on Christmas day, after all those new Kindles were unwrapped, Amazon sold more Kindle books than it did physical books. Sure, they probably don’t sell that many physical books on Christmas day as it is, but still.

And two- along with competing e-readers–notably the Sony Reader and the Nook, from Barnes and Noble–the Kindle is looking to revolutionize the way we read. Book sales have been steadily decreasing for some time, and newspapers have been complaining about declining readership ever since Yahoo was king of the internet.

People are still reading, yet publishers online and offline are losing money. Something has to be done. Rupert Murdoch, and those following his lead, think that “micro-payments” are the solution (paying a small amount of money every time you read a Wall Street Journal article online, for instance). But Amazon, Sony, and others like them, are convinced that what the readers of the world need is the perfect cross between a book and a computer. And while “perfect” is not a word I would associate with the Kindle, I’d venture to say that their efforts have been highly successful.

So we’ve gone over what the Kindle is, and why it is. Here are the two questions remaining: 1) What else can it do? and 2) Do you really need one?

Technology for technology’s sake is great and all, but there’s a reason that most businesses are still using Windows XP. If a product can’t help your business’s efficiency, it’s not worth it.

So here’s what the Kindle has: Free internet access virtually anywhere in the country. Now you can’t go around watching YouTube videos and playing Flash games on this thing. But you can check your email and access most mobile-sites (websites designed for PDA’s and smartphones). Buying books off Amazon is probably the easiest thing to do. It’ll cost you 10 bucks for a New York Times best seller, or 2 bucks for the entire collection of Mark Twain’s writings. The purchase is as easy as clicking a button and the book is wirelessly downloaded, instantly and automatically. PDFs and other e-books can be converted to the Kindle format free of charged.

The Kindle can read to you. Though some books have the feature disabled (it’s up to the publisher) the Kindle has a built-in text-to-speech feature that will read your text aloud to you. For those Radiohead fans who are imagining the mechanical, computerized droning in “Fitter Happier,”  think again. This is pretty sophisticated voice simulation (I know that AT&T has been experimenting with this kind of technology for some time). There’s also a headphone jack so those around you won’t be subjected to it. The headphones are also useful if you plan on using the Kindle as an MP3 player.

Not sure what a word means? Scroll to any word on the page and the definition will pop up from the built in New Oxford American Dictionary. Like a particular passage? Highlight it, and then using the thumb-pad keyboard, make a note about it. Want to know more about something? Search Wikipedia at any moment with minimal effort.

Every morning when I wake up, the New York Times has automatically been downloaded to my Kindle and is there waiting for me. There are over a hundred books and magazines available for the Kindle, including the Wall Street Journal.

Did I mention that it fits perfectly into the pocket of my winter coat? Well it did, before I defiantly threw my coat from the speeding train somewhere in New Mexico (Goodbye Winter!).

But the Kindle’s biggest flaw, in my opinion Continue reading 'Top 5 Screens of 2010: #4 – The Amazon Kindle (A Review)'»