[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by LUW

Well, almost ex-paperboy .
It's my first post here, so please don't get too mad at the noob questions. I'm from Brazil and was always interested in e-books, but never had a decent e-book reader. I thought Kindle was awesome, but when it came out it wasn't available here for Brazil, so I simply forgot about it and kept on buying paper books from Amazon and eBay .

To my surprise, in the beginning of this month I found out about the Kindle 2 Global model, and immediately got VERY interested. I have a good friend going to Miami in the next weeks so he could easily bring me one (and I save on S&H ). So if possible, here's what I would like to know:

1. So far I understood that I won't pay any additional fees to d/l a book directly from Amazon to my Kindle (yes, my city has 3G coverage according to Amazon's map). Is that true? I read all the help content over at Amazon and I think it's free, but after I read a few posts here I'm confused about a .99c or 1.99 fee .
2. If there is a fee, if I d/l from Amazon to my PC, will such fee exist?
3. Am I restricted to Amazon for e-book purchases? Not if you learn how to convert books to read on your kindle. In some cases, you might have to remove DRM - that may be illegal in your country, but I don't worry about removing DRM on books I purchased legally. It is not worth suing me for that, because there are no monetary damages.
4. I read a LOT at night. Should I buy one of those clip-on lights?I have a Mighty Brite, and I love it (it is purple and matches my skin perfectly). I use it every night.
5. Cases: I saw one at Amazon that has a plastic transparent cover in the front and EVA on the back, so you can read the Kindle without taking it out. A case like that, is it protection enough or should I go after a hard case?It is personal preference. I like to read with the kindle not in the cover (I preferred to read with the K1 in a cover) so I got a skin. It doesn't protect, but prevents fingerprints and makes it a little easier to hold on to. I got a padded belkin case for transport. But think about how you are likely to carry it around. I put mine in my purse or my briefcase, so that provides a level of protection, as well. The Oberon cover protected my K1 when I dropped it on the train platform - I haven't had that experience with my K2, yet.
6. Battery life: is it true that it can last over a week with a lot of use if the 3G function is turned off?I get more than a week now, because I use Calibre for the majority of my 1000 books. The more books you load onto the kindle, the more battery power will go to indexing and searching.

Sorry for the noob questions, but I honestly combed the forums and didn't find any post that gave me yes or no answers to these particular questions. If I can d/l stuff with no fees, even if it's to my PC, I'm going to buy it, but if there are fees (depending on the value) it would be more economical for me to just keep on buying paper books, specially used ones.

Thanks in advance for your patience and time .

I love my kindle, but cannot tell you about international charges, or availability of books internationally.