I just received Kindle 2 as a birthday present a few days ago. I wrote a little review for some friends, here it is verbatum:

I know that some of you were considering getting it for yourselves, so let me write a little review. I hope it'll be helpful. I don't think I was ever driven to write a positive review for a product before. There are very few things in a consumer electronics world that I love enough
to do it. (The only other product I can think of is the iPod touch, but I never wrote the review for that because that would be superfluous).

First, let me note that I'm probably the last guy on the planet to spot innovation. I wouldn't know innovation if it hit me in the face. When I first heard about YouTube I thought it was a stupid idea (who would want to watch a bunch of home videos?), I thought Facebook was stupid (I kind of still do, I don't see too much utility), I've been
to MySpace once (just to see what all the fuss was about) and I still don't get Twitter. I love the iPod touch, but when people talk about the tremendous potential of the platform they lose me - there are thousands of applications in the app store and there isn't a single one I'm really tempted to buy (or even download for free).

Keeping this preamble in mind, it took me about ten minutes of playing with the Kindle to realize that it changes everything. One day it will devastate the paper industry and the publishing industry, and will turn information delivery on its head. One day Borders (along with dozens of entire industries and probably tens of thousands of companies) will brace itself as it files for Chapter 11, courtesy of Amazon Kindle.

Kindle's biggest benefit is also its downside - it is absolutely trivial to buy content from Amazon. Want Ernest Hemingway? Click. Oscar Wilde? Click. New York Times? Click. Wall St. Journal? Click. A shitty John Grisham knockoff? Click. Kindle is the Google of published information, except that it isn't free. You'll only see the credit card bill at the end of the month, and all of that money will go to Amazon. If you own a Kindle, you will buy from them more frequently that you could ever have imagined. (It's cheaper than regular books, though. No more paper to cut, pages to print, delivery trucks to fuel, and cardboard to package it all).

Now, there are many negative reviews online. Essentially, everything they say is true. Kindle isn't perfect in the same way that iPod touch is - there are interface quirks, hardware quirks, and service quirks that you can read about elsewhere. However, complaining about them would be like complaining about the Ford Model T - it comes in one color, it isn't powerful, or comfy, it's hard to find gas stations,
and dozens of other quirks people undoubtedly complained about. But the Model T had one thing going for it - it was so much better than a horse and carriage that all of the other inconveniences paled in comparison[1].

The Kindle device and service contract will continue to evolve and improve, the UI will get more comfortable, the electronic paper will get better, the service will become more reasonable. When you use it you don't feel a sense of perfection you do when you use the iPod. But what it offers today is so good, all of the imperfections pale in comparison.

If you love reading and are thinking of getting it, do it and don't think about it twice. It's an amazing device, it's easily worth its price, and when you use it, although you won't feel a sense of perfection, you'll feel a sense of innovation you've probably never felt before. Get it, and you will hold in your hands a device that's similar in importance to the first printing press. Except it's not clumsy like the first printing press - it's already very very good.

I'll now go back to reading Ernest Hemingway stories.

[1] I am not comparing the feel of books to the feel of Kindle 2 here. I'm comparing the purchasing experience.