Amazon Kindle

Currently I am spending lot of time on the road and travelling from Kandy to Dankotuwa takes roughly 4-5 hours. So I was thinking buying an ebook reader. I do not like an Ipad or any other Tablets, since I hate watching movies when I do travelling and the screen is not anti glare.

Amazon Kindle uses E-ink, and it does not have a backlit screen, so that one can read the content even under the bright sunlight.

I cant afford buying books from kindle store ;) I have heard Amazon Kindle cant read pdf files, and those have to be converted to the native file format for Kindle. But today I read some blogs and reviews, there they say Amazon Kindle 3 has the native support for PDF. Hurrey!!!

Amazon kindle comes with 2 different screen sizes 6 inch and 9 inch. I feel like 9 inch screen is too large to handle in a bus. But I dont feel like I can read lot from a 6 inch screen. But Kindle 9 inch is too expensive, simply I cant afford.

• Kindle 2GB = 79$
• Kindle Touch =99$
• Kindle Touch 3G =149$
• Kindle Keyboard = 99$
• Kindle Keyboard 3G= 139$

I cant see the importance of buying a 3g enabled Kindle, since im not going to buy/ download books from online. Kindle 2GB version has 1.2 GB of user space. But Im not sure how many Pdfs i can store and will 1.2 GB is enough for me. So I will stick to the Kindle Touch. It is 99$ but as a Sri Lankan, I cant buy the US version I have to buy the international version which is 109$. The sad story is still Amazon doesnt release the kindle touch and I have to wait until Nov 21.

Accessories

Amazon, they send the data/ charging cable as the one and only accessory. All other necessary accessories have to ordered separately. I am thinking of buying a leather cover with a LED light which will allow me to read the kindle even in a solid dark. But it is quite expensive. Around 59$s have to be wasted on that.

My Dell Vostro 3450 Core i5

One month ago I bought a dell vostro 3450 core i5 laptop as my second laptop. I read lot of articles and I checked lot of laptops then finally the dell vostro 3450 was chosen. I was really really impressed about the rock solid design it has. The specification is listed below.

Processor	2011 Intel Core i5,2.3GHZ (M 2410)
Chipset	Intel Mobile HM67 Express chipset
Memory	4GB DDR3 Up to 8GB
Graphics	Media Accelerator HD, AMD Radeon HD 6630M graphics with 1GB video memory, switchable graphics
Display	14-inch High Definition LED Anti-Glare Display, 1366 x 768 resolution
Hard Drive(s)	320GB 7200RPM HDD (Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9500420AS)
Optical Drive	DVDRW (TSSTcorp TS-L633C)
Networking	Gigabit Ethernet (Realtek RTL8168/8111) 802.11n (Intel WiFi Link 6200AGN) Bluetooth 2.1+EDR (Broadcom BCM2070) (Upgrade)
Audio	Integrated speaker
Battery	6-Cell, 11.1V, 4.9Ah, 56Wh
KeyBoard	Spill resistant keyboard with Gesture Multi Touchpad, optional backlit keyboard
Ports	USB 2.0, 2 x USB 3.0,
Webcam	:- Integrated 2.0 MP Webcam and Digital array Mic with Windows Live Messenger Video Chat Software
Wireless	Wireless Network 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth v3.0+HS
Operating System	Windows 7 Professional 32Bit
Dimensions	13.5 x 9.68 x 1.2-1.31 inches
Weight	2.1Kg
Warranty	3 Years Service and 3 Years Parts warranty

It is just same as the photo I have posted there at the beginning of the post. I was not a fan of Dell laptops, I love ASUS products. In Sri Lanka it is very difficulty to find latest ASUS products. So as my new laptop I had to choose one from either Hp or Dell. Since the Dell Vostro 3450 is a business laptop and it has 14 inch screen I bought one.

I had to pay 100K LKR but in US I could have bought the same model for ~800$ :( . And the laptop came with a 3 year comprehensive warranty so that I dont have to worry for next 3 years.

The laptop has a metal housing and it is really really ice cold and I love the finishing. It has separate 1GB ATI Radeon 6630 graphics card so that I can play games too ;). The back lit keyboard is marvelous. And my previous laptop was a 15.1 inch because of that I wanted a smaller screen than that, and Dell sweetu comes with an anti-glare screen which doesnot shine at all.But some what difficult to watch the movies since viewing angle is low.But you can read papers without any difficulty.

I dont like the gaming graphics that vga card has but I have to accept it :) . The scores are stated below.

I have added another 4GB ram, that is why for memory sub score is 7.4

Before buying I have read some documents, and I was worried because I cant change the Laptop hard disk and I cant clean the cpu fan with out removing everything. "Everything" means one has to remove keyboard and then the palm rest bla bla bla to remove the hard disk or clean the cpu fan. So you must care about the dust level in the operating environments.

Conclusion: It is a good choice. You will own a rock solid laptop, Believe me :)

Final conclusion