I’m three weeks into having my Kindle and I love it. 3Quarks Daily’s post Ode to Textuality: Sam Anderson on the Kindle prompted me to write about it.
I’m currently reading Fatal Revenant (The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant) on my Kindle, along with a handful of doc / pdf files I’ve been forwarding to it. I’ve got a nice library of stuff queue up and am delighted with the overall experience. I’ve got a few minor complaints about the form factor and the UI, but the magic of Amazon’s Whispernet makes it 10x more usable than the Sony eReader.
I think the Kindle is analogous to the first iPod. Prior to the first iPod, there were plenty of MP3 players, but none of them integrated seamlessly with online music (or if they did, the UI sucked and no one could figure out how to get it to work correctly.) The iPod + iTunes got it right and Apple has been reaping dividends ever since.
Amazon is the natural provider of the Kindle. 100,000 ebooks later and there is actually a good library of titles to choose from (and growing daily.) So far I’ve been able to find everything that I want, and for $9.99 or less (vs. the $25 that hardback books are going for these days.)
If you’ve got a reader in the family, you’ll delight them this year with a Kindle. Amazon is taking a big chance with this, and I love it.