Amazon Kindle is a portable electronic reading device from Amazon.com, designed to take the place of a traditional printed book. Unlike other devices such as notebook computers or iPods, Kindle’s screen is specifically designed for reading large amounts of text. It also promises easy access to Amazon’s gigantic catalog, meaning you can wirelessly purchase and retrieve a book without tethering to a computer. Although originally released last November, Kindle was hard to come by for awhile. Amazon now has plenty in stock, though, and I got mine today.

First off, the packaging is slick. Kindle ships in a box designed to look like a thick book. The device itself is approximately the size of a trade paperback, with large buttons to turn the electronic pages, and a small keyboard at the bottom. The screen is like nothing else I’ve ever seen. It’s crisp and monochrome, and looks more like a printed page than a computer screen. You don’t scroll through content–rather, you press large buttons along each side to flip pages forward and back. Kindle’s industrial, angular design is not as slick as an iPod or MacBook, but it functions well as an electronic replacement to a book.

I spent some time thumbing through the manual, which is pre-installed on the device. Many of the features I love about PDF books are present in Kindle’s proprietary format–it’s easy to jump to and from the table of contents, bookmark pages, and annotate.

Unfortunately, the manual is the only book I’ve been able to look at on my Kindle. Granted, I haven’t spent a whole lot of time with the device yet, but I’ve hit a roadblock.

When you buy a Kindle, it comes pre-registered to your Amazon.com account. This makes it easy to make purchases directly from the device and transfer previously purchased materials, but it’s a problem when someone else made the purchase for you. In my case, since I purchased the Kindle at KU, it’s registered to Shanna. Of course, you can “deregister” the device, and re-register it with a different account, but that assumes you have a signal with Amazon’s Whispernet wireless service. Whispernet service is provided by Sprint, so you’d think I’d get a good signal in Lawrence–but from my house I have zero bars.

Once I get this wireless service sorted out I should be in business. I’ll be traveling to Chicago for a few days next week and hope to bring Kindle along. I’ll continue to report my experiences with this device, but in the meantime feel free to ask questions (or share your own experiences with Kindle and other e-book readers) in the comments below.

Tags: kindle