Kindle on the Plane

In my ongoing posts about my Kindle (find past posts here and here), I have a few comments to add about using Kindle while traveling.

I flew from Seattle to Albuquerque Friday. My kindle was loaded up with my newspapers and two books, one for business, one for pleasure. Using Kindle on the plane is a pleasure. It has a separate switch for the wireless functioning so you can turn that off and not violate the rules while in flight.

The guy in front of me put his seat back down. This makes paging through magazines and larger books and using my laptop difficult. But with Kindle, there is no page turning, so it was a breeze to read. Also, the Kindle can cohabitate on the seat back tray with a drink, the tiny bag of free pretzels or one of those snack boxes that cost $5.

I need more time to confirm this, but I think I am reading faster with Kindle. I don't know why this would be but I read more of the novel that I had downloaded than I expected. The Kindle has a small status line on the bottom - dots add on to the line as I read the book. Based on the dots, I read half the book on the flight, which is a lot because I am not a fast reader. There are no page numbers because the paging changes based on how large you make the fonts (I have the font set pretty large).

It was nice not carrying a couple books and a couple magazines in my carry-on - less weight.

I don't see the Kindle as a good substitute for magazine that have lots of pictures and graphics - so the New Yorker is well suited to Kindle but Fast Company and National Geographic Explorer are not. For long flights, I will likely load up my kindle and bring one colorful magazine for a change of pace. Short flights - just the Kindle.

Comments

[Craig]

I have got the Sony 505 EBook reader, which is very similar to the Kindle. I am also finding that I am reading much faster on it that when reading "regular" books.

I think it is because it is more difficult to back-track and re-read a previous section (since page-turning is a bit slow).

Loving it!