i recently received a kindle as a christmas gift and wanted to jot down some of my initial thoughts about the product. i have the wifi-only version of the kindle which i find to be very sufficient for my usage. i imagine the 3g connectivity model only becomes handy when someone either travels often or reads lots of periodicals. so what’s the most incredible feature of the kindle? clearly, the e-ink display. i mean really every other feature is secondary compared to the display. visually, i can honestly say, that i prefer reading text on the kindle versus reading physical printed media. i haven’t tried reading on the kindle for long periods of time yet (2 hours+), so i’m not sure if it really is immune to the eye strain problems caused by ordinary color LCD screens. i really dislike when people compare tablets or color e-readers to e-readers with e-ink displays. they are not the same thing. i would never want to read something the length of a novel on a color LCD. never! i also have seen people write-off the kindle as being a crappy computing device, again ignoring the incredible e-ink display (which is the center piece). will i use the kindle to web browse? i doubt it. will i use it to listen to mp3s? probably not. i have a much more compact and capable smartphone that fulfills those needs. i just simply want to use the kindle for what it’s truly meant for – reading.

update 3/21/2011:
i’ve had the kindle a couple of months now and have finished reading a handful of novels on it. i read for about 45 minutes at a time or so and never experience any eye discomfort. i obsessively only want to read material on the kindle now and not in printed form. it’s very convenient, you always have a ton of books with you. your place during reading is automatically bookmarked and there’s a built-in dictionary to look up the meanings of unknown words. i still do not use the web browser nor have i purchased any applications for the kindle (and probably never will). the kindle that i own has native PDF support, but i found it troublesome to use. for example, when viewing a single page of a PDF i had to navigate the screen several times to read the entire page. this is probably acceptable for looking at graphics, but it’s not really usable for reading. luckily, i stumbled upon a great alternative. there’s an OSS program called calibre that lets you convert amongst various ebook formats. it can convert PDF/CHMs to mobis (a format natively supported by the kindle). the PDFs are then viewable like normal kindle ebooks. calibre can also convert epubs to the mobi format.

i finally caved in and shelled out $60 for the leather case with a light. i think $35-40 would be a fairer price for it…but oh well. the good news is that the case does not look or feel cheap. the kindle snaps into it very securely and now i feel okay about bringing the kindle places. the light works great as well and is worth the extra 30 dollars…i guess :(.

if for some reason you want to read your ebooks on multiple platforms. the kindle and kindle apps will sync your ebooks and their bookmarks to your registered devices (PC, smartphone, etc).

battery life, i’ve left the kindle uncharged for 2 weeks or so with wireless turned on and it still held half a full charge.

pros:
excellent e-ink display
kindle apps for every popular platform
ebooks synced amongst different platforms
great battery life

cons:
no replaceable battery (this bothers me)
amazon DRM on purchases
does not come with a cover/case (and covers/cases are ridiculously expensive)
native PDF support isn’t as useful as it would seem
no SD card slot