Kindle Lights My Fire

So I think CH might be regretting getting me a Kindle, because I became obsessed with it in like zero seconds flat. Here's the good, the bad, and the ugly so far:

THE GOOD:

1. Easy to read, navigate, figure out. Very user-friendly. Think they must have tested it out on senior citizens, b/c it's kind of crazy easy to use.

2. Electronic paper. Yes.

3. Light-weight and Convenient. One Kindle as opposed to several books, yea! I can carry it around everywhere.'

4. Tons of books. Most of what I wanted, I've been able to find on here, most often cheaper than it would be at a bookstore or online. From books at the top of the (critical) charts like Junot Diaz's The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, which I'm reading now, to newbie stuff, life fellow CMU Writing program grad, Frank Politio's Band Fags, which I'm reading later.

5. No more having to figure out where you were when you close the book. When you turn the Kindle back on, it remembers were you left off in every book, even if you're reading more than one (like me).

THE BAD:

1. The well-documented too-large page button problem. It's way easy to scroll way past your page if you pick it up while it's on. Also, the buttons are too easy to accidentally hit. Kindle 2.0. definitely needs to shorten the page buttons.

2. No page numbers, so when I accidentally hit the "next page" button to many times, it's hard to find where I was. Also, there are some little dotties going across the bottom of the screen, which I think indicates progress, but I'm still not sure where I am in Oscar Wao. I'm at the bit were the mom gets a job in a Chinese food restaurant. If you've read it, please let me know if that's towards the middle, or if I'm still in the beginning.

3. Only 16 magazines available. And the ones that they do have are a little confusing to navigate. Ranh.

THE UGLY:

Dude, why is it white? Most of you know how I feel about white anything. Slate gray would have been much better for someone like me. I just know it's going to get all mussed up with fingerprints and random stains and pen marks -- like everything white that I've ever owned. And unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a sleeve for the Kindle. Hopefully Belkin will get on board, before I get it too dirty.

FINAL CONCLUSION:

All in all, the good far outweighs the bad and the ugly. So I'm giving The Kindle a huge thumbs up.

Though, if you want a second opionion, click here to see novelist's Christopher Moore's take - although, unlike him, I find reading on the Kindle extremely easy. Don't want to use the "O" word with one of my favorite authors, but it might apply in this case. Sorry, Chris...

And click here for Stephen King's review of the Kindle, which pretty much sent me into a fit of Kindle lust, when I read it back in January.