Amazon Kindle - The "Going Green" Gadget for Saving Trees

The Amazon Kindle first made a splash last year when it sold out at Christmas time and was hard to find. Since then the Kindle has continued to grow a great reputation in the market. Looking at Amazon today, there is an amazing 3,601 reviews on this product. That is just a staggering number for any product. The reviews average 4 out of 5 stars which again is no small feat.

I felt obliged to write a story on this gadget after conducting my own informal "straw poll" last week. I asked 10 of my friends and family if they had heard of this product. Only 1 of the 10 had said they heard of the product, but he really did not know much about how it works.

The Kindle is a wireless device where newspapers, magazines, and books can be downloaded into it to be read by the user. Now, when I made this statement to the 10 people I polled, the lights did not go off in their head right away. I must admit it took me awhile to consider the amount of paper I could save by not having a newspaper delivered each day to my home. Frankly, I do not read the entire paper. It pains me to put it in the recycle bin each day after I am done reading. How much paper is one year's worth of newspaper? I know how heavy my bin gets, because I drop it off once a week. Over the course of the year, I could save a lot of trees.

Another great feature about the Kindle is reading books. You can purchase any book for $9.99. Think about all the savings on the books that you buy today. The average best seller book in hard cover probably runs around $25. That is quite a savings from the cover price. When you really think about book production and its costs, the biggest costs are not the author writing, but the binding (trees), printing (trees), and transportation (diesel) of the books to the book stores. Now, if you were to cut out those trees and fossil fuels, what kind of impact would that have on the environment?

In summation, Kindle is one of the few products that has come along which can really make a difference in saving forested areas. My one concern was that the screen would be hard to read or that my eyes would tire of looking at the screen. Many people commented in their reviews that they were surprised at how easy it was to use the screen and that there was not a long-term effect on their eyes which made reading difficult. The price of this product is $359, but I would anticipate it to come down in price over the next year. I do like the fact that there is not a monthly "wireless" fee of any sort. Once you buy it, you only pay if you download books, newspapers, or magazines. If you look on Ebay, you will see incredible action on these devices which is yet again, another sign of their desirability. I placed some of the facts about the device from the Amazon site below which detail more about the device and what sort of things are available for download.

• Revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper.
• Simple to use: no computer, no cables, no syncing.
• Wireless connectivity enables you to shop the Kindle Store directly from your Kindle--whether you're in the back of a taxi, at the airport, or in bed.
• Buy a book and it is auto-delivered wirelessly in less than one minute.
• More than 130,000 books available, including more than 98 of 112 current best sellers.
• Best Sellers and New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise.
• Free book samples. Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy.
• Top U.S. newspapers including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post; top magazines including TIME, Atlantic Monthly, and Forbes--all auto-delivered wirelessly.
• Top international newspapers from France, Germany, and Ireland; Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine, and The Irish Times--all auto-delivered wirelessly.
• More than 300 top blogs from the worlds of business, technology, sports, entertainment, and politics, including BoingBoing, Slashdot, TechCrunch, ESPN's Bill Simmons, The Onion, Michelle Malkin, and The Huffington Post--all updated wirelessly throughout the day.
• Lighter and thinner than a typical paperback; weighs only 10.3 ounces.
• Holds over 200 titles.
• Long battery life. Leave wireless on and recharge approximately every other day. Turn wireless off and read for a week or more before recharging. Fully recharges in 2 hours.
• Unlike WiFi, Kindle utilizes the same high-speed data network (EVDO) as advanced cell phones--so you never have to locate a hotspot.
• No monthly wireless bills, service plans, or commitments--we take care of the wireless delivery so you can simply click, buy, and read.
• Includes free wireless access to the planet's most exhaustive and up-to-date encyclopedia--Wikipedia.org.
• Email your Word documents and pictures (.JPG, .GIF, .BMP, .PNG) to Kindle for easy on-the-go viewing.
• Included in the box: Kindle wireless reader, Book cover, Power adapter, USB 2.0 cable