ereader

Deb just got her Kindle last night. I think the Kindle is GREAT. Yes, it is easy to accidentally hit the right-hand Next-Page button when holding a Kindle. But I hold it at the bottom when reading so it's not a very bad problem - just a minor annoyance.

Features I like:
- Display is GORGEOUS! High resolution and awesome contrast. For print - better than an LCD display.
- I don't think it looks cheap at all. The device feels light weight, but solid.
- Interface is simple an intuitive.
- You can bookmark, annotate, or "clip" whole pages to save markers, or your thoughts. Your clippings file can be transfered to a computer (via USB only, I think).
- Downloading content (without a PC) to a Kindle is fast and frictionless.

Kindle comes with a Web Browser (in the experimental section) - I've not seen any developer information on the functionality of the Kindle browser (though it DOES have javascript support). I wonder if there will be a market for Kindle-optimized or Kindle-specific web sites (as their have been for the iPhone).

Kindle's currently take up to 6 weeks from the time you placed your order (people receiving them today, ordered them around Feb 1).

Sounds like the Christmas backlog is soon to be cleared, and Amazon expects to begin shipping the same day as they are ordered.

Quoted: Amazon.com's CEO says the company is finally ramping up production of its electronic book reader as customers continue to face long delays in receiving it. Read this blog post by David Carnoy on News Blog.

.MOBI files are supposedly readable by Kindle directly. TXT and DOC files can be converted (and will be converted for you by Amazon by emailing their your-kindle-name@free.kindle.com email address.

The development team for the kindle is a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com, based in Cupertino.

I haven't seen the Kindle packaging in person but the photos look great. Good job on that one.

Advance to minute 36 to hear interviews of people in a bookstore when presented with a Kindle for the first time.

Scott's rationalization for buying a Kindle on economic grounds...almost works...

Quoted: Mike Koss Says:
December 5, 2007 at 7:22 pm
...
I’ve been using a Kindle for about a week - about 100 pages into a book, read Seattle Times, WSJ, and NYT every couple of days.
...
I’ve been very happy with it. Newspapers are NOT as nice as reading the physical paper - missing lots of the photos and the layout is just not as easy to scan. I think they could do better with some re-formatting (even better would be to customize subscriptions to the sections and story topics you want to be highlighted).
...
But, I’ve canceled my paper subscription anyway - looking forward to the day of getting ALL my magazines and most of my books this way (I was running out of shelf space at home, anyway!)

Scoble rags on the Kindle. I don't have mine yet - but I think his written complaints are a little off base. Compare the Kindle to "a book" - not to "a computer with web browser".

Just watched the video - I've never seen Scoble so ANGRY! He repeatedly insists that the designer of the Kindle be FIRED. His main beef - the big side page forward and back buttons are too easy to press accidentally.

Some of the UI difficulties are due to the screen technology. The electronic ink displays do not refresh quickly and need to flash to repaint (but they have great reflected light contrast at low power).

Everyone agrees that the book purchasing capability via the device is amazing. But Scoble laments that there is no way to have social features to recommend/gift books to friends, or comment on blogs, etc.

I believe people are very adaptable to even some seemingly awkward design constraints. So only time will tell in the Kindle design problems are product killers - or just a learning curve that's worth climbing for the other benefits.

One point that I think Scoble is totally wrong about - is that the Kindle should have been targeted as a "book recommendation device" - and NOT a book reader. That's just a crazy idea that I'm going to but this device and spend time on it sending recommendations to friends. Maybe Scoble's mind has been fried by too many Twitters.

I'd love to see a rebuttal of Scoble's criticism by the Kindle designer - does he have the balls?

The Sony site for their new reader. I saw this in person at CES and liked it quite a lot. Probably the first one that I think might be worth the price and have enough content for sustained effort in this space.