Ive had my kindle for about 4 months now after reading a few reviews on moneysavingexpert. At their advice I ordered the refurbished model and it arrived as new and within 48hours from Amazon.
As a refurbished model the packaging was not new. It was instead an amazon box with kindle and USB lead only, the manual and wall charger did not complete this. Though the screen protector was still on this model.
I bought this due to running out of room in my room for books, and because I liked the idea of being able to read a book moments earlier advertised on amazon. Though the actual reading experience is no different to book form, whether that be a positive or negative to you.
It is incredibly lightweight and easy to use. On ordering an account is automatically set up for you and so the reading and ordering can begin immediately. My kindle on arrival did need a long overnight charge before use though, impatient as i am it was necessary.
The use was slightly pre-historic to begin with. With technology verging on all touchscreen and in comparison to my ipad, it was slightly backward to be using buttons to move a cursor.. and it was slightly fiddly to use but after a while gets easier.
The reading experience is similar to a book. The screen represents a page size but without the papercuts, dust, storage space, of a book!
I would recommend but do suggest that you left the actual ordering of books via a laptop rather than on the kindle itself. And being able to store 3,500 books on one device means you can stop living in the box room and clear out your bedroom full of books!!!