To Kindle or Not to Kindle: Perhaps the Proof is in the Pudding

Yeah, I like mixing metaphors in my blender.  Anyway, I received my Amazon Kindle 2 last week and I’ve been trying to use it as much as possible to decide how I feel about it.  I’ve already read an entire book on it (Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell – pretty funny and I breezed through it.  If the Venn diagram of your interests has an overlap between the Mafia and medicine, it’s the book for you.), so I’m technically an expert.  ;+)

Here are some first impressions:

  • The books that are available at Amazon don’t wow me.  Sure, there are some 240,000+ of them, but it seems heavy on what I call “airport books”.  These are those books that are up front in the airport gift shop and usually involve a tall dark detective and/or a winsome lass.  Sure, there are good books there, but some things I would have loved to read aren’t there.
  • The screen is smaller that I would have thought.  I read pretty fast, and even with the text at the second to lowest size (I find the lowest a little *too* small), I’m hitting ‘Next Page’ pretty frequently.
  • I miss the verso.  I didn’t realize how much I must scan back to the verso when I’m reading because I’m using the ‘Prev Page’ button a lot, too.  It may be that the screen flash for the refresh when I go from page to page is addling my brain or something.

Now it may seem like I’m being negative.  On some level, I want to not like it and send it back.  On another level it’s just way cool.  For traveling, the Kindle is certainly the way to go.  Don’t like what you’re reading?  Just flip to one of the other 1500 books you have.  (That’s the approximate capacity; I can’t see anyone buying that many books!)

All in all, it’s an excellent device on which to read.  I have an iPhone, so I’m unlikely to use it to surf the Web, etc.  Some of the features that get others excited are better on my iPhone, so I won’t use them.  I *will* use it to read.  But I’m not giving up paper just yet.

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