My office had a spare Amazon Kindle and I was able to borrow it for the week. I must admit I'm impressed. I might purchase one soon. Here's a quick breakdown.
The Design.
While the shell of the device lacks the attractive design of the Sony E-reader, I found myself warming up to it. It comes with leather carrying case, which folds over the device, reminiscent to a Moleskine notebook, with elastic strap and all. But, honestly, the case is crap. It's bulky and the Kindle itself never feels snug in the case, almost like it is going to fall out. It has two next page and previous page buttons, located at each side of the screen. This can be awkward as it is very easy to press the buttons inadvertently. The Kindle uses a clickable scroll wheel to select content and navigate the UI. I would have preferred a touch screen myself, as it would be a natural extension for a device that is trying to replace a physical book. The UI itself is very simple and elegant and I had no problems navigating the interface after playing around with the device for 2 minutes.
The Display.
The E-ink display is gorgeous. Since it is not blinding like most consumer electronic displays, due to lack of backlight, it feels like you are reading a paper page. You can adjust the text size, on the fly, very easily. It offers six fonts sizes. The screen refreshes when you go on to the next page pretty quickly too.
The Store.
You can buy books and subscribe to newspapers and magazines directly from the Kindle. It comes with a EV-DO connection that is complimentary with the life of the product. No monthly fees. You can preview the first chapter of every book available in the Kindle as well.
Final Impressions.
If you love to read the Kindle can be a good investment. I found that reading from it more pleasurable than physical books, since there are no pages to turn, eliminating the physical discomfort of keeping a book open, which can be annoying with new books, especially paperbacks. It makes reading on your bed or couch very comfortable The fact that the Kindle is also very light is great, being an avid reader, I sometimes dread having to lug hardbacks on the Subway. The small form factor of the Kindle eliminates this.
I would definitely recommend anyone interested to see if they can try one out firsthand. Amazon has a kinda of meetup page set up for those interested in getting in touch with current owners. Sounds weird. I know. But the device ain't cheap, and I would recommend anyone interested to obviously try before you buy. Below is the link.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_5915932_1?ie=UTF8&docId=1000230941&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=special-offers-3&pf_rd_r=1T9RPDMJYZK18SAXQB8H&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=399789801&pf_rd_i=B000FI73MA
