BootsnAll Travel Community

Does anyone have one? Whataya think? It seems pretty amazing if everything that's touted on Amazon is true (from an "I'm traveling around the world for a year and having all my books in 10.8 ounces" perspective.

It looks like it runs on the Sprint wireless network, but I also read somewhere that it works in Europe too. Anyone had any experience with that?

My wife is dead-set on getting one, but $400... damn.

Amazon has a lot of happy customers and there's a long waiting list to get one, so I guess it must be a pretty good thing to have.

That said, whether it's a good idea to bring it on a trip outside the USA or not depends on why you do so. As you say, the automatic update of newspapers and magazines and easy access to new books will not work outside the Sprint network. Instead you must have access to a computer set up to "phone home" to the Kindle shop at Amazon. I'm not sure if this is something you can do at Internet cafes, but I doubt that all of them will allow it.

So, if you bring a computer on your own and you stay places where you can get wifi Internet, you should be fine with your Kindle.

Bjørn

Well it is good but expensive.

I don't think we'll be worried too much about the newspaper and magazine updates, more so just having all of our reading material for a year in one, lightweight unit.

I guess my hope is that there's someone out there who can lend a "I travel a lot with my Kindle and I shoved it in and out of my backpack for a year and it worked great/sucked arse!" type opinion.

I've thought about getting one, but the price is too much right now. Not to mention the fact I love the feel of books.

Though bbtz got one for her husband (she talked about it in the travel with kids section) and one for each of their kids for the RTW trip they were taking. You could always pm her and see how it is going with them.

The main thing I'd worry about is it's another $$$ thing to worry about. When I travel, my three main worries are:

1. Passport/$$$
2. Ipod
3. Camera

I leave all other valuables at home, but if I had the kindle, that would be a forth thing, and I'd be nervous about it. My friend was robbed while sleeping on a train (they gassed everyone on the train) in Europe, so when I sleep during travel, I try to stick stuff down my pants. I'd look really funny with the Kindle down there too. Teehee!