Kindle

i like to read. Actually, i love to read. i grew up with a book in my hand (literally - my mom made me to put the book down when i was in the car because i couldn't get home from a mile away. i was 13). i can still sit down with a good book and not look up for multiple hours.

i think it was last year that Sony introduced the Sony Reader, a digital device utilizing e-ink. That means that the display is much more readable than a regular computer screen and doesn't fatigue your eyes. It sounded pretty cool, but was a bit expensive and used a proprietary format for the books that you bought. Plus, it was a first-generation product, and i'm not an early adopter. i like to know what is out there, but i'd rather wait a few generations for a product that has been developed with some real-world feedback.

Well, Amazon just released the Kindle, a similar product with more features and such. You can check out the link if you want specifics, but the things that jumped out at me were that it is wifi enabled (it will also log on to phone networks as well, at no charge), has some internet connectivity (wikipedia, certain newspapers and blogs) and has a keyboard for annotation and full-text search.

It looks really cool, but again, it's a bit out of my price range. Plus, the books you buy for it aren't that much cheaper than buying the physical books. Since i am in a city with one of the best bookstores in the world and can find plenty of used books to read for significantly cheaper than the new price, i'm not sure how many books i would be willing to buy in electronic format. There are a lot of public domain books that i could read for free, but i like some of the newer books as well.

So i guess i'll wait another generation or so, to see if prices come down and functionality gets better. Hopefully, there are enough early adopters to push the development of the devices. The good news is that the Kindle is currently back-ordered, so at least there should be some good feedback. Here's hoping...