Gadgets

[re]Kindle Your Love of Books

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Following in the footsteps of the wildly mildly popular Sony Reader, Amazon enters the world of electronic books with its release of the Kindle. For any student, business professional, or bookworm out there, this release has the potential to change the way you read your books, newspapers, and blogs. Some specs to spark your interest:

• Weighs less than 11 ounces
• Can hold up to 200 books on its internal memory.
• It also has a port for a SD drive, so you can expand the memory.
• You don’t have to be in a wi-fi hotspot to access the online content.
• You can have newspapers delivered*
• magazines delivered*
• and also read blogs*
• Free access to Wikipedia
• Built-in dictionary so you can look up words you don’t understand.
• Screen is a 4-color grayscale E-Ink display - reduces eye strain.
• Most books are only $9.99 - Even NY Times bestsellers
• * Additional Fee applies to these services

The initial reaction to this release is curious. I spent some time this morning on Amazon.com/kindle and read a few pages of reviews. As of writing this post, there are over 150 reviews, with an average rating of 2 1/2 stars. I say its curious because the majority of the reviews are from people who do not even own one. Perhaps someone should remind these people about the key differences between a “review” and an “opinion.” That being said, there are some valid arguments in the critical “reviews.” Here are two things that caught my eye:

• No support for PDF files
• Extra charge to read blogs

I don’t have plans to purchase the first-generation Kindle. I usually like to wait around until at least the first upgrade so the initial bugs are worked out. That being said, I am very excited about this device. Particularly for its potential uses in the classroom. Can you imagine if all of your text books could be put onto this thing? Who do we have to lobby to make this happen? I’m going to send an email to Adrian and Michael. I bet every single student out there would love to ditch the bulky backpack in exchange for one of these.

What say ye - can you picture yourself ditching your hardbacks for something like this?

UPDATE: It looks like the Kindle is a pretty popular item this holiday season. Would you pay $1,500 dollars for one?