It is described as the revolutionary reading device, and it is. Amazon’s Kindle is the gadget of all gadgets for the business traveler who enjoys reading over featured inflight entertainment, or when your laptop battery dies. Gone are the days of stuffing your carryon bag with newspapers, books, and/or magazines. With Kindle you can lighten your load and have a larger variety of reading materials to choose from in the air.

Purchasing a Kindle is simple. You can order it from Amazon.com like any other product. Once you receive it, you must register your Kindle with Amazon, which is a simple online process. Once you’ve registered and provided an active credit card, you are ready to purchase whatever reading materials are offered on Kindle. Currently, that includes over 275,000 book titles and 39 newspapers . Twenty-nine of the newspapers are U.S. newspapers including the major providers, i.e. The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The L.A. Times, etc. The rest are foreign.

Kindle also offers 29 magazine subscriptions including The New Yorker, Forbes, Time, Newsweek, Reader’s Digest, and more. I subscribe to The New Yorker at a cost of $2.99 per month. Each Monday the weekly issue downloads directly to my Kindle the minute I turn it on. With the soft grey unlit background, there is no strain on the eyes and I can page through the periodical as if I have the print version. The cover art is included (although it is in black and white), all the articles, the cartoons, the letters, etc. The best part is, there are no advertisements! Kindle allows you to subscribe monthly, or simply purchase a particular issue.

Purchasing books, magazines and newspapers couldn’t be easier. Your Kindle allows you to access Amazon’s Kindle Store wirelessly on the road. Make your selection online and it downloads directly to your Kindle in less than 60 seconds. It’s like magic. Magic that charges your credit card remotely, but seemingly magic nonetheless.

A terrific feature included within Kindle’s capabilities is the ability to “clip” articles from your purchased periodicals. So if there is a particular article you would like to quote from, share, or refer to at a later date, Kindle allows you to “clip” it and download to your computer in a simple text file. This takes the most basic of computer skills. If you have questions, the user’s guide is provided on Kindle as a separate “book” to which you can search by table of contents and section just lieke other book.

Kindle also allows you to subscribe to over 5,000 blogs ranging from entertainment, to politics, technology to business and investing. You can manage all of your subscriptions and your account by signing onto Amazon.com, clicking on “Kindle” and then “Kindle Store”.

The Kindle battery lasts for about four days of reading time. It lasts longer if you turn the wireless feature off which allows you to download new material. The battery life is shorter in areas with poor wireless coverage. The power cord is a combination USB 2.0 plug and a power adapter in one, and it's small and convenient enough to carry on the road.

Kindle 2 is lightweight (10.2 ounces), and its dimensions are 8” X 5.3”. The latest version, the Kindle DX, has a larger reading space with total dimensions of 10.4” X 7.2”. Whereas the Kindle 2 allows the business traveler to transfer .pdf files onto Kindle once they have been converted, the Kindle DX advertises a native .pdf reader allowing the transfer without conversion. This is an added feature for reviewing files on the road that have been transferred to your Kindle, especially beneficial if your laptop battery dies on a long flight and there are no power sources between the seats on the aircraft.

It’s doubtful that Amazon had business travelers in mind when it developed the concept of Kindle, but it seems that way. This gadget has made my travels so much more convenient and enjoyable, I don’t know how I lived without it.

Kindle Credit: Thanks to my paralegal Amy Leece who gave me this amazing gift for my birthday this year. Click on the links below to explore your future with Kindle.