Can You Read Kindle Books on Your PC?

An Amazon Kindle

Amazon's Kindle is an e-book reader that allows you to purchase and read a substantial portion of the online bookseller's massive inventory. If you don't have a Kindle but want to see what the books look like, you can now purchase and view Kindle e-books on your PC.

Getting Started

You'll need to download a program from Amazon's website to read Kindle books. Go to Amazon.com, click on the "Kindle Store" link, then find the "Kindle for PC App" link on the far left side. Click the "Download now" link and follow the setup instructions. You're now set up to access the Kindle store and read Kindle e-books.

Current Features

In addition to letting you read Kindle e-books, the Kindle for PC App will sync your last page read between your computer and Kindle. As of December 2009, you can also view annotations that you created on your Kindle on your PC, although you can't yet create annotations on your PC.

Future Features

Amazon does plan to let Kindle for PC users create annotations (which will automatically sync to the Kindle) in the future. As of December 2009, Amazon also plans to add search functionality and a "Zoom and Rotate" function.

System Requirements

According to Amazon's website, you'll need the following to use Kindle for PC: a PC running Windows (any consumer version released after XP Service Pack 2), a 500-MHz processor, 128 MB of RAM, 800x600 screen resolution and 100 MB of available disk space, plus space to store your e-books.

Current Limitations

As of December 2009, Kindle for PC cannot read Kindle versions of newspapers, magazines or blogs. There is also no Mac version available yet, although Amazon does promise that one is coming soon.

References

• Amazon.com: Kindle for PC App Site

Resources

• Amazon.com: Kindle E-Book Store