[Hoot Gibson]

My brother got me a kindle paper white for my birthday back in April and I love it. I got my girlfriend a kindle fire hd and it is awesome. Has anybody tried the kindle fire hdx yet?

I have not tried a Kindle fire but I use the Kindle reader software on several devices including several laptops and my Blackberry Playbook. I hardly ever read a paper book any more. There are some advantages of buying one of the Kindle Fire tablets, such as being able to replay Amazon videos in HD, but I like my Playbook. I have more than 50 technical and programming books stored on my Playbook, which I use as a reference at work.

You can download books in non-Kindle formats such as PDF and Mobi and read them with the Kindle Reader application. You can also read them online in web browsers using the Kindle Cloud Reader without downloading them to your computer.

I do plan to buy a Kindle Paper White soon. For reading novels, newspapers, etc., I think the digital ink of the non-color Kindles is much easier on the eyes. I love the long battery life as well.

There is really no good reason for all college textbooks not to be available in Kindle format much more cheaply than in paper. Being able to carry around thousands of books in a device that weighs less than a pound just makes too much sense for colleges to continue to hold a virtual monopoly on textbooks.