The latest Amazon Kindle ebook reader is, for me at least, a dream come true. Certainly, I would gladly admit that, as someone who counts reading as one of my main pastimes, I must be very much Amazon’s target market. Typically, I would expect to read an absolute minimum of one book weekly – and it’s not atypical for me to have one novel, one non-fiction and any number of reference books under consideration at any one time.

I don’t believe that’s so unusual quite a bit of cash on books. Apart from the monetary side of things, my collection of books does tend to take up quite a bit of space at home. Once in a while I sift through the pile and, setting reference books and favourites to one side, have a bit of a clear out. More often than not the books go to friends or charity shops.

I recently got rid of more than fifty volumes in advance of moving home. It wasn’t until I saw them all, packed up and ready to go, that I realised I was looking at a spend of anywhere between $500 and $1000 which had built up in just under a year.

Now, whilst the Amazon Kindle is a relatively expensive item in itself, the downloadable e-books from the Kindle store are generally quite a bit cheaper than the printed versions. After all, there are no printing and delivery costs for the publisher and no mail charges for Amazon. Even saving just a few dollars per book, which seems quite reasonable, anybody who reads on a regular basis could pretty rapidly recover the cost of the device and then start to save money with time.

The potential benefits aren’t only financial. The Kindle 2 has a storage capacity for around 1500 e-books whereas the Kindle DX, which will commence shipping on June 10 2009, can store 3500. That’s a lot of reading material – and a lot of physical storage space that will no longer be required in your home or office.

Some users have suggested that the Kindle is a green, eco-friendly, device – based upon the fact that it will save on the volume of paper used. It’s easy to see the logic, but obviously some consideration needs to be given to the materials used in manufacture and also the way in which the device will be disposed of when it reaches the end of its design life.

The actual benefits achieved will vary from user to user and will probably depend mainly on how many books are bought yearly. However, for keen readers, it does appear that the Kindle might offer a number of different advantages which should justify the initial purchase price.