The ability to download samples of books and essentially browse through a bookstore from your sofa is pretty damn cool. It’s slightly weird to hold on to at first but within an hour it’s incredibly comfortable and natural.

This was a Christmas gift (Christmas in February wahoo!!) and now ranks as one of the most perfect and appropriate gifts I’ve ever received. It is a must for any avid reader.

In addition to electronic books, the Kindle 2 reads PDFs and (simple# Word documents. I simply send 100 page manuals to my Kindle email address and voila! They are at my disposal on the road, without my having to lug around pounds of paper.

The business applications for anyone who has to read large documents are great. I’ve recommended the Kindle to the attorney’s on our staff. You can’t really ‘red line’ a doc on a Kindle, but you can certainly read through a contract on a plane/beach/etc, make notes, and then easily email those comments and notes to yourself #or someone who works for you# when you are near a wifi connection once again.

Plus the Kindle starts up in 2 seconds so documents can be retrieved quickly – and straight to the page upon which you left off – or quickly to any bookmarks or notes you’ve already made. It’s become much faster for me to get right to what I need on my Kindle, than a doc on any laptop or smart phone.

This is an incredibly handy device if you have a love for, or work extensively with, the written word.

Oh and one more thing – I’ve discovered that if you turn of “wifi” (easy navigation) until you know you need to send or retrieve something, the battery lasts for many many more hours.