I got a chance to play around with a Kindle e-Reader device yesterday (my Mum bought one!). It’s quite a neat little device that works brilliantly for it’s main purpose: reading things.
The screen seems almost fake when you first see it as it doesn’t look like a normal screen, it almost looks as if it was printed on. It’s actually really great for reading though.
The weirdest thing for me is that I just want to tap on the screen to interact with it after being so used to that with my iPhone.
There’s an experimental web browser on it which is usable albeit a bit clunky due to the lack of touch screen, it’s great for reading text-based content though so it’s handy if you just want to read some stuff online.
Although people have tried to compare the Kindle to Apple’s iPad, I wouldn’t say that it is a competitor at all, I think it’s more like the original iPod which was created with one function: ‘listening to stuff’, but the Kindle’s one function is: ‘reading stuff’!
Overall I’m pretty impressed with it as a reading gadget, I could probably see myself getting one for at home. It just remains to be seen whether the rumours of a 7" variation of the iPad have any truth behind them, the touch screen benefits of a device like that could win out if it can be close to the light weight of the Kindle too!