I've had it for a few months now, and so it's time to sit down and decide how I feel about the overall wisdom of the purchase. The short version is, I'm really glad I bought it.

The best part of the Kindle is that it doesn't take up a lot of space, and I can read more than one book even if I only have it with me, if I end up having more time than I thought, or I decide that I absolutely have to have the sequel after all. The fact that I only need one hand to read is convenient as well--I can click with my "carrying" hand instead of having to flip pages using both hands, and I don't have to worry about wind or the pages turning on their own.

I read a book sitting in a convertible on the way from Norfolk to Baltimore, with the top down. I couldn't have done that without the Kindle--at least not without a whole lot of frustration. I also find that I read faster with the Kindle, because I don't flip pages, accidentally drop the book and lose my location, have my fingers get in the way of words, etc.

There are negatives to the Kindle, however. I find it a lot more difficult to flip randomly around the book looking for something, particularly if I'm, say, writing a review. Sure, I can just run a search or use the option to go to the right percentage of how far into the book I want to go, but I find flipping by 2-3 pages a lot more organic. Perhaps as I get more used to the Kindle, this will get easier. And I will say that it's not bad for anthologies, since it lets me skip to the next short story if I don't like the one I'm on, but I couldn't find a way to go right to the one I wanted, or back easy.

The .pdf reader is described as being a preliminary, beta sort of thing, and it definitely shows that they haven't mastered proper rendering of .pdfs, which makes reading e-books that I get in that format (I don't have many, but there are a few given out free at conventions or in contests and the like) a pain in the butt. Also, there seem to be more typos and errors in the e-format than I'm used to in books, but that's probably more the publisher's fault than Amazon's.

I find it really annoying that, although both sides (left and right) of the Kindle have a "next page" button, only the left side lets you go back. The menu button is where the "back" button logically should be, and I can't go back if I'm reading with my right hand, which is really annoying, especially since it's advertised that you can read with either hand.

As a note, the Kindle is the only e-book reader I've ever owned, so this is a comparison of the Kindle and a paper book, not the Kindle and other e-readers.