Second Thoughts on the Kindle

I gave my first impressions of the Kindle a while back. Now that I have been using the Kindle for a couple of months or so a few more observations come to mind.

First, there was a minor inconvenience in taking on my first airline flight. At one airport, it was in my carry-on case. After walking through the security check, the bag did not come through. Shortly one of the security folks asked who owned that bag. Something had set off a red flag. They had detected that an electronic device was inside my bag. So, the Kindle had to be resent through the X-ray machine alone just like a laptop. However, after getting on the plane, it was very convenient to read from it: no pages to turn, no book to keep open, no bookmark to reset.

I'm now on my second purchased book. I started with "Intellectuals and Society" by Thomas Sowell and am now reading a Winston Churchill biography. The Sowell book was formatted very well for the Kindle. Every paragraph or two was separated by a couple of lines of whitespace. This made it fit very well onto the relatively small Kindle screen. The Churchill biography has a more traditional formatting. Sometimes this leads to paragraphs extending over more than one screen full.

Now that the iPad will be out soon, I am wondering if that might be a better experience. For just reading books, the Kindle I have is adequate. I'd like a bigger screen. Color would be nice but is not necessarily a practical concern. 99.9% of all the books I have ever read are pretty much black and white and mostly text. Maybe color capabilities would offer more subtle contrast potential, making it even easier on the eyes.

Dave Winer, who was very enthusiastic about the Kindle when it was first released has some interesting current thoughts in the context of the iPad release.