Me and My Kindle [5.10.09]

After spending three months with my Kindle, it's safe to say the e-reader has arrived and is here to stay...

A lot of technology gadgets come and go in my life but the Kindle is a keeper.  I don’t think it will have the mass appeal of the iPod (reading is still reading afterall!) but I am definitely noticing the device has achieved some critical mass.  On a domestic flight several weeks ago (a Boeing 737 just to give you an idea of the number of passengers), I counted five of them.  On a flight to Vail back in March, I noticed three.  It’s not so uncommon to see them at the lunch tables in my local Whole Foods or in the waiting rooms of some doctors' offices now.

I’ve noticed the following about the Kindle:

• I read A LOT more.  Since I bought the device, I’ve read eight books on it and three more in progress.  That’s a little more than two completed books per month which is above average for me.  Amazon’s razor and blade strategy is working on me.

• I can more easily read and manage multiple books at once, something I have always been prone to do.  Reading one book often leads me to another and with the Kindle its easy to find related items via the online store. In essence, one book in the Kindle is almost like a hyperlink to another.

• I love how the device lays flat!  It’s actually easier than reading a paper-based book.  It makes reading while eating so much easier as you’re not trying to hold down the pages with one hand and eat with the other.

• Battery life is great but it does run out sometimes.  I’ve never had a book run out of batteries.  For the one time you forget the charger, the battery is dead, and you want to read, it’s a huge letdown.  I really do not want to break down and buy another charger.  I wish Amazon had used a standard mini-USB port so I could use existing cables.

• The iPhone app is phenomenal and good for reading while waiting in line or during the dead time we all experience during the day.  The app syncs with the Kindle and remembers your page locations and vice versa.  Kudos.

• With small children, getting out to the bookstore is not always easy.  I am all about instant gratification and being able to order a book and begin reading it immediately is a huge draw.

• I love not needing bookmarks.

• I have a subscription to the Wall Street Journal but it’s not working out well.  With the Journal, one cannot see all the possible stories and then decide what to read.  It’s disconcerting for me.  I feel like the paper will never end and I end up not reading it at all.  Maybe the recently announced larger screen Kindle will help solve this problem.

I have no plans to move anytime soon but when I do, the Kindle (or some other equivalent yet to be conceived device) should make the task easier.  I do not take pleasure in owning or looking at the physical semblance of a book.  It’s just the opposite for me.  When I see a book, I see a lot of resources used to create it, the space needed to store it, and the effort eventually needed to pack and unpack it.