I was talking to my friend the other day about buying a Kindle Reader now that they have gone international (I’m in Australia and up until now have wanted one, but couldn’t) and she asked if I really needed another gadget around the house which got me thinking, do I really need a Kindle Reader?
I guess that’s like asking if you need an iPhone or PS3 (my boyfriend would argue yes to both) but with the recent price drop and the fact that it’s gone international, do you really need a Kindle 2?
I guess that depends on how much you would use it. With the Australian dollar so great right now, it really isn’t that expensive if you are already an avid reader (like I am) and since Amazon is my bookstore of choice anyway I could potential be saving myself quite a lot of money on books.
Let’s do some math.
I buy an average of three books per month from Amazon. At an average cost of US $15 each and around $20 in postage and shipping costs, it costs me around US $65 a month for my reading material. Over a year that’s $780.
The new International Kindle’s are $279 and books average around $12. Obviously I wouldn’t need to pay shipping costs because the books are delivered wirelessly using the free 3G wireless you get with it. 3 books per month over the course of a year would be $432. That’s a saving of $348 in just one year. Obviously the Kindle has more than paid for itself during that time then.
Now of course not every book that I purchase has a Kindle edition available. In fact I’d say only about 70% do at this stage, but that number is growing all the time and I expect that number would increase over the next year.
There are other benefits of owning a Kindle as well. No more cramped bookcases, you can take your whole library on holiday with you (it’s much lighter to carry a Kindle 2 than two or three books like I usually do). You can get free internet access (although it is limited to mainly just browsing). And you can even get newspapers and the like delivered to your Kindle as well (handy because I like some US magazines that are very expensive to purchase here).
Overall if you are already a reader then the Kindle reader is a great purchase or gift for someone (yes Christmas is just around the corner).
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