Amazon Kindle – The most popular eBook reader – is now launched in India. Shipping starts on 19th October, 2009. On the homepage of Amazon.com, you can see below excerpt from founder Jeff Bezos’ letter,

With this new kindle, you can get your books, newspapers, and magazines delivered wirelessly while at home or abroad in over 100 countries. Whether you’re in Paris, Mumbai, or Sao Paulo, you can think of a book and be reading it in less than 60 seconds.

Kindle’s base price is about 13,500 INR in India, now include shipping charges, import Fee deposits and higher prices of eBooks, it will add up to total price of kindle to 19,000 INR! It seems higher price, but book lovers will definitely love this device for its flexibility of use, portability and capacity of storing eBooks (1500 Books at max!!!), but there are some things for which Kindle can’t stand. Here’s discussion about the reasons of why you should buy Kindle and why shouldn’t.

Why Buy Kindle

• If you love reading books while traveling, then Kindle is your best companion. One Kindle will stock up all the books you want carry in digital format with you whole time. Finished “The Lost Symbol”? Start reading “Chronic CIty” right inside Kindle.
• Put anything in Kindle (It won’t say “Jaan, let’s wait 2 more days!!!). You can email your Doc, Txt or PDF files to your own kindle email address – that costs 10 cents. But you always can transfer you documents to your Kindle via USB for FREE.
• Looks cool and great, Just like the Apple iPods, and you can show off heavily…
• More and more publishing in eBook formats, its very high probability that you will find your friend’s eBook “How Only 2 Readers Read This Book – Me & You” for Kindle.
• You can book-mark, highlight or take notes with Kindle. And it just loves it.
• Dictionary seems more user friendly in Kindle 2 version with in-line definitions. Move to a word and it shows definition at bottom of the page.
• It seems, why I should invest so much money. But Kindle is future. Might it take shape of the very familiar pocket book some day in future and you will be reading it while having trip to Moon.

Why Not Buy Kindle

• Are you a rocket scientist? Then Kindle is not for you. For research projects, Kindle is bad move. You can flip back and forth like chimp on physical book (Kindle is not for chimps!). Till date we have used books and very familiar with what to find where in the book. Kindle seems to take long learning curve as compared to the books we have been reading from Kindergarten ( I think, in future it will be Kindlegarten ).
• Are you a geek who writes fancy code, do programming and use programming manuals? Kindle can’t handle programming manuals that efficiently the way your Unix “man” command. Read in paperback instead.
• You can’t break a book, right? But you can break Kindle. Someday you just open your bag and you see Kindle in two EMIs. It can break (19,000 INR, think again). It’s very thin and risks much BETTER to be broken than physical books.
• Students can become geeks or rocket scientist, so Kindle is No No!!. Ref , above reasons.
• No Wi-Fi built-in.
• It can handle max 1500 eBooks and you don’t have SD slot in Kindle. So no memory expansion and hence maximum 1500 eBooks (Seems you’re reading too much, go out and have some fun dude!!).
• Biggest drawback from my point of view is, Kindle needs power and hence battery. If battery dies, Kindle will be of no use except slicing butter (Very thin, huh!). Need to carry charger all time.
• And yeah, you thought it right. Those books have a charm and liveliness which can’t be beaten by this soulful(!!) Kindle. I just love my paperbacks.

CoreDump: “Americans like fat books and thin women”

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