I got a Kindle for Christmas from my lovely parents.
Why I like it:
- Form factor, screen size, weight, battery life
- Reading more long form copy in a while, I think because I can get the right amount of copy on screen to match my natural skimming style
- The inherent task switched that you have by picking it up, and the single-tasking of it. As someone else said (not that I can find the link) the web-browser will be useful for emergencies, but that’s about it. No push alerts, growls, or games to distract
- Instapaper’s integration is really lovely (and finally helps me address the “popping” of To-Read items instead of the the “pushing” of them onto the stack)
Things I don’t like:
- Limited choice of Newspapers – I would pay for the Guardian on it if I could. With the 3G variant, it’s a tablet thing always up-to-date with that.
- Similar to that, I will not pay for the economist again. I don’t have to pay for the Online access, the iPhone app or website over and above my subscription, so much as I would love the have the economist on my Kindle – until Amazon/Publishers sort out a discount for subscribers I’m not
- I can’t think how to do it efficiently, but the screensaver could be so much more than just a book image… (that said that completely breaks my previous statement that I like the mono-purpose of it)
I’m not going to pretend whose commercial teams are at fault here for these, but they are the main gripes I’ve found so far. Given those are policy, rather than technology, I hope they’ll shake out in time.