A couple weeks ago I found myself on a flight from Las Vegas to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This was a no frills flight, for meals you had your choice of peanuts or chips, and for entertainment you had your choice of the airline magazine or staring out the window. I lamented the fact that I did not bring a book along to read, and my Kindle’s battery was dead.
Then I remembered that I had downloaded the Kindle reader app for my Droid cellphone. I hadn’t used it yet, thinking it was just too small for a comfortable read, but since I had no other choice I fired it up and opened my downloaded copy of Girl with a Dragon Tatoo. and started reading.
Reading on a Cell Phone is Better Than you Think!
It was wonderful! I increased the size of the text just a little, I could also adjust the brightness. The book reader takes over the entire screen – no icons, just the text. Turning the page is a simple swipe of your finger from right to left across the screen. Reading my eBook took little or no battery power. After a 5 hour flight, I couldn’t see that the battery life meter had dropped at all. As with the Kindle, I love that reading an eBook can be done with no hands. I just laid my phone on the seatback tray and propped it up with the peanut bag so that it was at a good reading angle. I only needed to use one finger to turn the page as I read. Here’s a short video showing how to read an eBook on a Droid cellphone: