I pre-ordered the new Kindle from Amazon about a month ago and they were finally shipped on Friday and I got mine on Saturday. So far I’m pretty impressed. It is super thin – less than a centimeter (8.5mm according to the specs), and also very light. I’m finding it pretty easy to use and very easy to read. I had looked at a Nook at Barnes and Noble a few weeks back and my very subjective impression is that the Kindle display changes pages more quickly.
I have noticed a couple of small user experience challenges. If I am holding the device with both hands, the location of the keyboard doesn’t make it easy to type with my thumbs. Not really a criticism – I don’t know that there’s a better solution. It’s also taking me a little while to get used to the operation of the page turn buttons. What I find a little counter-intuitive is that both forward and backward buttons are located on both sides of the device.
A bigger disappointment was that the very first two books I decided I wanted to read are actually not yet available on the Kindle! The two in question were Saving Globalization by Mike Moore (No, not that one! This is former NZ Prime Minister Mike Moore) and Thinking Like Your Editor by Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato. So I guess I’m going to have to wait for those. But I have since purchased several books and it’s pretty cool how they just turn up on the Kindle within a minute or two. I’m currently reading Peter Schiff’s How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes.
I’ve also had opportunity to use another feature, which is the ability to email documents to the your Kindle account so you can read them on the device. Sweet! Worked out well today as I had some pdf documents I needed to read while I was on a flight to Atlanta this afternoon.