Saturday, June 27, 2009

The Amazon Kindle, Douglas Adams would have loved this

So I got a Kindle the other day.

It totally kicks ass. Here are a couple of pics of it (next to a mass-market paperback for size comparison).





My kindle has 2Gb of memory (about 1.5 available for user content), so it will hold a pretty good sized library (I only have 3 books on it so far, though).

It also has a cellular wireless connection for, get this, FREE! The browser is pretty basic, so between that, the connection speed, and the e-paper screen's refresh rate, browsing the internet is significantly slower than my DSL connection at home, but still way faster than the old 56k dial-up. Plus images may or may not look right, but for mainly text pages (like Google and Wikipedia) it is great. I can easily check my email (gmail) but sending is a bit tricky right now, since I am not accustomed to thumb-typing.

This thing really does live up to the comparison to the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

All it needs is a cover with "Don't Panic" in large, friendly letters. I'm working on that.

Later,