I have gotten some apps from 1mobile. Learned about it on the amazon forums and it works great. A few others I had friends with android devices buy and I paid them and they emailed it to me and I side loaded them on my fire so not a big issue for me. You can get dolphin HD browser from 1mobile and the latest flash player so you can watch the videos on ABC, CBS and such. Probably the same for other tablets since adobe does not do flash for tablets now. There was not a lot I wanted outside amazon so that is probably why I don't mind. I prefer the fire because I like the e-reader part plus I can e-mail and play games so works for me. My friend has the Kindle reader app on her tablet and I don't like it that way for me. I watch the netflix app on mine in bed every night now instead of the laptop and my HBO go app. It's not for every one so you have to research what suits your needs. Mary

"My son shared his Amazon Prime membership with me, so I get free shipping, but when I try to borrow a book from the Lending Library, it won't work. Maybe the Lending Library is just for primary Prime members not the ones who it was shared to. If that makes any sense...." You can only download books to Kindles or other "apparatus" (like a pc or BlackBerry or iPhone, etc.) if that equipment is registered to the account of the person with the Prime membership.

Fran1523 -- Nook owners can lend each book only ONCE, for a period of 14 days. And if you "make the offer to lend" a book but the recipient doesn't accept it within 7 days, or rejects it altogether, you cannot lend it to anyone else. You cannot retract an offer to lend once the offer has been made. The lending feature will be available to Kindle owners very soon, so it is no longer an "advantage" for the Nook. Taigen -- The following is from the Amazon web site: "We are excited to now ship Kindle to Canada. Customers in Canada will enjoy: Books in Under 60 Seconds: Think of a book and you could be reading it in under a minute. Free Wireless: Free 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle. No monthly fees, service plans, or hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots. For non-U.S. customers, there are also no additional charges for wireless delivery in or outside your home country. See Coverage Map. See Wireless Terms and Conditions Growing Selection: Over 530,000 English-language books to choose from; plus U.S. and international newspapers and magazines are available for your country. Because publishers give us eBook rights on a country by country basis, available titles for your country will vary from our current U.S selection. We are actively working with publishers to get the rights to all titles for every country and adding this selection every day. Check the Kindle Store to see available titles. Low Book Prices: New York Times® Best Sellers and New Releases are $11.99, unless marked otherwise. You'll also find many books for less - over 135,000 titles are priced under $5.99" I don't think it's that any particular publishing house won't allow any of its books to be sold to Canada (or any country other than the USA), but it's more on a book-by-book basis. It's just a matter of time before all books available in the USA will be available in other countries. But, as it says on the Amazon web site, you can check the availability of books at any time, so if you're thinking of getting a Kindle, look to see if books you'd want are available. Nooks cannot be sold to anyone outside of the USA, so even with limited e-book availability, the Kindle is obviously the better choice. Nook owners keep mentioning the ability to get library books on their Nooks. I've searched for information on the Barnes and Noble web site, but cannot find anything about this. So, the only comment I can make is that if you have to go to the library to "borrow" the book onto your Nook, I don't see any advantage to that at all. It's so nice, with the Kindle, to be able to download books wherever you are at any time of the day or night. And I would imagine that you only get to have the library book for a specific period of time, and I don't like that at all. When you buy a Kindle book (or download a free Kindle book), it's yours forever. Even if you delete it from your Kindle, you can still download it again for free because it's in your Amazon Kindle account. Kindles in the USA have a one-year warranty. Kindles sold to folks in Canada have a one-year warranty. Canadians would have to send their Kindle to the USA for warranty service. I'm in California, and I'd have to send my Kindle elsewhere in the USA for warranty service, so we're even on that one. :-) Murray's Mom -- LOL! We have at least 800 physical books here in the house (hardbound and paperbacks; and, no, we haven't read all of them), but that didn't stop us from getting Kindles! We have the 2nd generation Kindles, so ours hold approximately 1,500 books each. The latest generation Kindles hold at approximately 3,500 books each. It's a heck of a lot easier to carry 100 books with you on a Kindle than it is to haul 100 physical books around with you! In fact, that's one of the driving reasons when I bought a Kindle for my husband. We both love to read, and when we go on vacation, we both always take books with us. But Hubs pretty much only buys hardbound books, and he tends to buy HUGE (thick) books. Try hauling four big, heavy, hardbound books in a carryon when you're flying somewhere. Ouch. Carrying a Kindle is a breeze. You can pretty much always have the Kindle with you, so you can read whenever you have a few minutes free - like waiting for a meeting to start, or while waiting for a bridge to "do its thing." We have two bridges in Sacramento - the Tower Bridge is a vertical lift bridge, and the I Street Bridge is a metal truss swing bridge. If you get stopped at the I Street Bridge as it begins "its thing," you're going to be there for at least 15 minutes. The Tower Bridge takes about 7-8 minutes. Many medical offices don't have magazines in waiting rooms now because of the risk/potential of passing germs, so if you have your Kindle with you, you get to read what you want to read while you're waiting. :-)

My Kindle arrived on Monday, a day early! It works as advertised. I purchased and downloaded a book more rapidly than I have ever downloaded anything, probably a minute or less. I had already decided on the book, Down River by John Hart, and that decision took a long time because there were so many possibilities. Last night I downloaded one of my previously purchased Audible.com books. To do that requires downloading first to the computer and then to the Kindle via USB. The audio book takes much more space than the printed book but I will only use the Kindle for that purpose in the car on long trips because I don't have a car player for my iPOD. Before the Kindle arrived I was reading a paperback book, which I don't like to do because of having to hold it open without harming the book (my personal problem). Now, with switching back and forth, I find the Kindle is so much easier to read that I am wishing the paperback would be available on the Kindle as well. Reading on the Kindle is better than I even expected. The cover for the Kindle is like a leather-covered hardback book cover. Because it has two sides, like a book, it becomes very easy to forget that I'm only reading on one side of it. I sometimes reach for the page to turn, forgetting that I should touch the "next page" button. The cover also makes it possible to prop the Kindle in front of me while I am eating and that certainly doesn't work with the paperback book. The print looks very much like that in a printed book. It is possible to choose from six font sizes. The reason there are no page numbers is because they would vary depending on the font size. It does give a location instead of page number and there are dots across the bottom of the display to indicate how much of the book has been read. The search feature is very nice and useful, especially in looking for something in the Kindle User Guide, which I do need to consult from time to time. There are other features I haven't checked out yet. So, my initial reaction is that I really, really like the Kindle. Is it worth $400? I have no idea. That is a judgment everyone has to make for themselves. I don't think it will ever totally replace books but it will help me keep from adding nearly as many to my Tottering TBR Towers.