Guy Kawasaki: there are two kinds of Kindle reviews...

[Harvey]

Guy Kawasaki is an ex-Apple employee who is something of an industrial tech design legend for his work on Mac and other Apple products.

According to Guy: "You’re going to see two kinds of reviews: bad ones from people who haven’t used it and good ones from people who have. It’s that kind of product."

He likes the following about Kindle:

      No computer required...

      Content flows. Content is pushed to you via the EVDO wireless network. (This is the data network that’s about four times faster than the one used on an iPhone.) Think of Kindle as a Blackberry for blogs, newspapers, and magazines.

      Content is king. Amazon has done a great job of lining up content from newspapers such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Le Monde; magazines such as Forbes, Fortune, Time, and Atlantic Monthly (but sadly, not Hockey News yet); and blogs such as TechCrunch, Scobleizer, Huffington Post, BoingBoing, Truemors (!), and Motley Fool. You have to pay for subscriptions, but you will not get on an airplane with nothing to read again. If you’re like me and load up on reading material before a flight, a Kindle (10.3 ounces) will save you several pounds of newspapers and magazines. Amazon has essentially create the “iTunes of documents” if you will.

      Battery life is good. Considering that content is always being pushed to it, I found that battery life was good—going a couple of days without charging. If I were more judicious and turned off wireless at night, it would have lasted much longer but that defeats the purpose of push technology. If wireless is turned off all the time, it will go about a week on a charge. And it charges up very quickly: about two hours. Oh yeah, the battery is replaceable—what a concept.

      The screen is perfectly readable. I was skeptical at first, but I had no issue with reading the pocket-book size screen, and I’m an old man who needs reading glasses. It’s not color, but I’d rather have a long battery life than color. Plus, most physical newspapers aren’t in color anyway. Some people will complain about how reading a book is easier than reading a screen, but some people complain about everything.

      There’s a real QWERTY keyboard. Call me old-fashioned but I like to feel keys go up and down as I type!

LINK: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/11/amazon-announce.html

[Stacy]

That is an interesting perspective - and seems more accurate than the people that are judging without having one . . . . .

[Carol]

This all makes sense, but its not really apealling to the younger audiences, who in the long run will be their main targets. I know my sons are really into touch screen these days. And color just makes everything better in their eyes!
There are pros and cons I guess.