Kindle is a portable electronic device that allows consumers to read e-books. It’s been produced by e-commerce leader Amazon since November, 2007, experiencing a huge, ever-growing popularity from the start. Such success can be explained by several factors.

The primary origin of Kindle’s popularity can be easily traced back to Amazon’s own success. Amazon’s gigantic consumer base trusts the company, hence being naturally prone to buy its products.

Secondly, Amazon is one of the world’s main bookstores ever. Considering that a vast portion of Amazon’s clientele is interested in reading, offering an e-book reader like Kindle just makes sense. Kindle certainly appeals to that part of the public who looks for electronic alternatives to traditional print books.

Reading e-books on a computer screen isn’t normally the most pleasing of tasks. Computers aren’t portable and their screens aren’t suitable to long reading periods. Kindle has been designed to solve these issues. It is small and portable, and its screen actually is an electronic paper display, which makes for a more comfortable experience for readers.

Some might argue that notebooks are portable as well. However, notebooks can’t really compare to Kindle, which is smaller and lighter. Therefore, Kindle’s portability is superior to that of laptops.

Today’s consumers are generally more concerned about environmental topics, recognizing the positive impact of green products in their lives. As e-books don’t take any tree-cutting to be produced, they fall into the green product category, unlike traditional, paper-made books. This represents yet another advantage for Kindle users: they know many natural resources are spared when they use an e-book reading device.

For those who purchase books on a regular basis, storage is a major concern, because it takes a lot of physical room to keep print books. With Kindle, book storage is a much less complicated process. After all, e-books can only take up virtual space. Besides, it is easy to download books from Amazon straight into Kindle’s memory.

Amazon has developed a proprietary format for Kindle, AZW. This doesn’t mean Kindle users can only read AZW documents though. In fact, the device also allows them to load books available in plain text. Another option for consumers is to use Amazon’s e-mail-based conversion service to turn documents into AZW files. MP3 files and audio books can be imported into Kindle as well.

Taking into account the many special features that consumers can find in Kindle, it’s only natural that this device is so popular. As time goes by and Amazon releases improved versions, Kindle’s fame will certainly grow even more.