I just ordered one electronic book reader, the Amazon Kindle portable ebook reader. I have been waiting a long time for the next generation device. It is expensive, and I travel often and pack very tight. Don’t have much room for books – certainly not for more than one. I think this will be good for light reading (popular fiction, newspapers etc). If the price is too high – don’t ever go buy it, library is a better choice.
As for button placement and all this other hoop-la, there is likely a good reason it is the way it and I believe they have tested it alot. I agree, you would think they could put design somthing that is more pleasing such as Apple?). However, this eboom reader is a simple device with a 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 big challenge for the manufacturers to try and 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 lousy calendaring and Blackberry has lousy internet interface (both these things have been refined over the years). This should get competitors busy with competing products and that is good for all of us.
I have a first-generation Kindle and I absolutely love the shit out of 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 extremely tempting, though. Maybe if I can pawn my old one off on a friend for $100 or something… we’ll see.
Kindle 1G is probably more than enough for most if the sole purpose is just to read books. Physically ugly, maybe. But it is adequate for most of the time.
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