Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

The Kindle reviews at Amazon show that a surprisingly large number of owners love being able to change the font size on their Kindle. A little digging on large print books, low vision, and related fields reveals some really interesting facts - 

1. There were approximately 124 million people worldwide with low vision in 2002. (from Wikipedia).
2. As populations around the world age, there are more and more people with lower vision. So the market for Large Print Books is increasing rapidly.  
3. The wikipedia article on low vision has some interesting information including the fact that visual aids helped the majority of people affected by low vision.
4. Large Print Books were first created as literally double-sized and double font sized books. In 1969 they changed to normal sized books with 16 font size. 
5. There is an interesting company called ReadHowYouWant that prints Large Print Books in custom fonts.  
6. Amazon itself has a Large Print Books Store. Its very nicely set-up with browsing by categories, a section on bargain large print books, and also a bestsellers section. 
7. Kindle’s font sizes are also helpful if you have slightly weak vision or just want less eye strain. 

The Kindle’s variable fonts allow users with low vision to read any book in the Kindle Store – definitely a bigger range than that available in Large Print Books. The other advantages of the Kindle also come into effect - 

1. Lower Prices.
2. Light Weight. 
3. 24/7 availability. 
4. Instant Downloads.

For someone with low vision, I’d think not having to drive to a store is a pretty significant advantage too. 

I’m not sure if Amazon specifically aimed at targeting this market – however, they’ve managed to create a great device for people who have bad eyesight. If you have low vision or another vision related problem, buying the Kindle is definitely an option to look into.

Filed under: extensions, kindle Tagged: | large print books, the kindle large print