And I try to convince my family about it, but just cannot get it through to them that "kindle the tablet" and "kindle the ebook reader" are entirely unrelated products. What a terrible bit of branding.

Well don't buy a Kindle then. Amazon is horribly with regards to user rights anyways. https://stallman.org/ebooks.pdf

Amazon has nothing to do with my user rights. I mostly read drm-free ebooks. But their reader hardware is second to none.

I thought it as well, but then I bought a Kobo (Aura One back then) and I'm super happy. And it is much more hackable: there a countless patches to the official firmware, plus installing koreader is a piece of cake.

oh! good tip. I haven't examined the market in years and years, but the kobo looks pretty nice.

I use my kindle all the time and I totally forget about charging it. Then suddenly it tells me it's low on battery and I remember "oh yeah, I've not charged this in like 3 months"

What other modern battery device has that many interactions/uses without needing near daily recharges? It's like magic

My smartwatch (or any similar transflective watch from the likes of Garmin or Amazfit for that matter) are similar. I got close to 90 days between charges once. Now I use it much more but still get many weeks between charges.

I'm very disappointed by my kindle battery.I need to charge it back every two weeks. And I'm not someone who read a lot.

Wireless mice maybe?

That's a fair point. I have no idea how logitech gets my mouse to be able to run a radio for a month or two between charges

I will always take the opportunity to read without a backlight. It's a hugely noticeable difference on the eyes for me. I'm just glad I don't have to print out thousands of sheets of paper just to read documents comfortably any more.

I was reading on a normal android tablet. When I saw a sale on a kids bundle for 99 bux, decided to pull the trigger. Been my night time reader for months when going to sleep. It's amazing how easy on the eyes it is. I just read until I start to nod off.

Why did you think it was a fad? Just curious. Had you ever seen one in real life?

Not OP, but it's both not as capable as LCD, and a lot of people who like reading seem to be part of the physical book sniffer religion. You know, the "I NEED A REAL BOOK." people. Given they're the main demographic aimed at by e-book readers, and a lot of them seem to hate even just the idea of reading on any screen, I can see why people would think the technology would quickly go away.

Isn't that like saying that iTunes MP3 purchasers are part of the 'vinyl obssessive' crowd? Someone who purchases a $14.99 book on a Kindle is doing so because they aren't going to spend $27.99 on the hardcover.

I wouldn't count vinyl as a real alternative to mp3's. mp3's are more a replacement for portable stuff : cd's and cassettes. And I never heard anybody but the most hipsters defend those.

It's more like comparing vinyl to first gen non-portable cd players. I wasn't there at the time, but I imagine it was probably not obvious then either that cd players were there to stay.