Amazon Kindle (7th Gen) 6" 4GB E-Reader

I love my Kindle. I bought one when the price dropped below $100 back in 2011. A touch screen sounded nice, but physical buttons were OK by me. At $79, the new touch screen Kindle was definitely tempting, but I resisted until Thanksgiving when the price dropped to $49. Two days later I had my new Kindle & my husband had my old one. He's been a read paper books or read on the tablet or phone kind of guy. Two weeks later when the price dropped to $59 I asked him if he wanted Santa to get him one. After comparing the 2, he said yes. So, why this Kindle? Designed for readers Physical books have dark print on a light background. They don't have built in lights. You sit in a spot with adequate lighting and read them. The same is true of this Kindle. Of course, sometimes it would be nice to be able to read in the dark or see the color in a book. Fortunately Kindle apps are available for almost any device and Amazon syncs across my devices. That means I can switch to using my tablet or phone when I need color or a light. For the record, I don't do that very often. Ease of Use I really didn't mind the physical buttons on my old Kindle. I also don't miss them. It's so much easier to hold the Kindle when I don't have to position my thumb on the edge of the device so I can turn the page. On the relatively rare occasions when I need to type something the keyboard on the new Kindle is incredibly easy to use. Typing on the old one was a pain in the butt. Getting a definition or highlighting a passage is a matter of touching the screen, not repeatedly pushing a button. Adjustable Fonts Need reading glasses? I do. Sure, I can read normal sized print in physical books, but my Kindle lets me adjust the font size to make reading easier. This isn't a new feature, but it's easier than it used to be. Battery Life The bad news is I don't get the projected month on a charge. The good news is the battery lasts days, not hours. Amazon bases their claim on 1/2 hour of reading per day (15 hours per month)and leaving wi-fi off. I spend an hour or 2 a day reading, so that cuts the estimated battery life at least in half. The Kindle uses battery only for page turns and accessing wi-fi. I leave wi-fi on. I also use a larger font and I read more than 1000 wpm. Google says the average person reads 250-300 wpm. The font size and reading speed mean at least 4 times the estimated page turns. Battery life may not be what Amazon claims, but it's certainly within expected parameters. And it definitely beats battery life on my phone and tablet. Good Reads I have't previously used Good Reads, but I do now. I love that it's integrated into this Kindle. Family library This wasn't available on the old Kindle. I like sharing books with my husband. We don't have any children in residence, but the family features sound great. Buying Experience Books don't have to cost money. I usually don't go into a bookstore or a library in search of a specific book. I go to a section and choose from what's available. I do the same on Amazon. I do most of my browsing in the free best sellers list. Since free books don't necessarily stay free, I buy whatever looks like I'd like it. I don't always like them and/or read them but I have more than 800 purchased books, most of them free. And all I have to take with me on the plane is my Kindle. Of course, at the bookstore I can sample the book before I buy it. Amazon lets me download a free sample. Once I buy a book, Amazon downloads it to my Kindle in about the time it takes to read this sentence. Amazing. Other book sources **Public libraries. The selection of ebooks at my library is significantly smaller than the selection of paper books. (No, ebooks don't cost the library nothing. They are actually significantly more expensive.) That said, the selection has definitely improved. Books check out for 1-3 weeks. The process is ridiculously easy. Check out the book & select Kindle. Overdrive takes you to Amazon, where the buy button has been changed to the borrow button. Don't count on finishing the last chapter after lending period ends. The book will stop functioning the second the lending period ends. The good part of that is that there are no fines for late returns. **Prime Lending Library. Check out 1 qualifying book per month with no due date. I have a wishlist of Prime books I want to read. I checked the library for them. Most weren't available,so my free sources don't overlap. This is a nice perk of Prime, but definitely not a reason to sign up. Prime books are only available on Kindle devices, not Kindle apps. **Kindle Unlimited for $9.99/month. I didn't expect to like my free trial, but I did. I could easily find and read more than $10 worth of books per month. Most (all?) of my Prime wishlist is available on Kindle Unlimited. While I like Kindle Unlimited, I have suspended my subscription for the moment. I will probably renew periodically. My husband wasn't impressed with the selection. I browse bookstores. He shops for a specific book. Kindle Unlimited is more suited to browsing. Special Offers As previously implied, I'm cheap. That said, I did wonder about the Special Offers. Buy the Kindle with SO. Pay the $20 difference later if they bother you. You will see them as a screen saver and at the bottom 1/2 inch of the home page. You do NOT see them when you are actually reading. I don't spend much time on the home screen. I spend even less time looking at the screensaver. I spend most of my time on the Kindle actually reading. Some deals aren't bad, so I occasionally look at the list in the menu. It's definitely not worth $20 to me to get rid of them.