I just ordered one electronic book reader, the Amazon Kindle portable ebook reader. I have been waiting for the next generation device. It is not cheap, as I travel by air almost every other week. Don’t have much room for books – certainly not for more than one.I feel this is great for light reading (magazines, popular fiction etc). If the price is too high – you shouldn’t buy it, in fact use the library.
As for button placement and all this other hoop-la, there is likely a good reason it is the way it is – I am certain they have tested it that much. I agree, you would think they could perhaps put together a more design pleasing product(Apple)?). But this ebook reader is a straight forward device that serve one simple purpose. You may not be able to have a touch screen with electronic ink with current technology, you need real estate to hold on to the device without smudging the screen etc. By the way, they likely want wireless phone connection so folks are more likely to make spur of the moment buying decisions (gotta have it now society). Its a huge challenge for manufacturers to cram all these things into one device. Just look at mobile phones, even the iphone and Blackberry aren’t any where near perfect and they have been building those things for sometime. iphone has bad calendaring and Blackberry has lousy internet interface (both these things have been refined over the period of years). This should get competitors busy with competing products and that is good for all of us.
I own the first-generation Kindle and I absolutely love it. I will hold off the upgrade idea for a while first, since this does not seem to be much of an upgrade given the $400. The improved screen refresh and 16 shades of gray is tempting, though. Maybe if I can pawn my old one off on a friend for $100 or something… we’ll see.
For the purpose of reading books, though, Kindle 1G is certainly more than adequate. Physically ugly, probably. But enough for most of the time.
