I’ve owned an Amazon Kindle for almost a year now, and I’m still really happy with it. A few highlights of the year:

  • I’ve read at least 80 Kindle books. 68 of those were purchased from Amazon, a few were free books from Tor, and a few were purchased from Baen.
  • Of those, probably 10 were read via the Kindle app on my iPhone. It’s a lot less enjoyable than reading on my Kindle, so given the choice I’ll always grab the Kindle first, but I can keep my iPhone in my pocket and pull it out at lunch or while I’m stuck waiting in line. Since it syncs with the Kindle over the air, I’m able to hop back and forth between the two devices and still have the right page sitting and waiting for me.
  • By and large, I’ve found that I enjoy reading books on the Kindle substantially more than I enjoy them on paper. I’ve probably only read 5 paper books over the past year.
  • My original Kindle broke in February. I came home from work and picked it up, and half of the screen was dead. I called Amazon’s 800 number and they overnighted a replacement to me. Everything synced over to the new Kindle and I was back in business.

I’m about 95% happy with my original Kindle. The button placement is still kind of annoying, but over time I’ve gotten better at not pressing the forward and back buttons accidentally. It’s slow startup is kind of annoying, and mine crashes about once per month and needs me to pull the battery to get it working again. Over all, though, I’m happy enough with it that I’d willingly buy it all over again.

Although, if I was going to buy one over again, I’d buy a Kindle DX. When I originally bought my Kindle, I’d carry it with me everywhere to read when I had spare time. Now I mostly only bring the Kindle when I’m traveling and keep my iPhone in my pocket, so the DX’s larger size isn’t a liability. At the same time, the DX’s larger screen will make it usable for reading technical books in PDF form, which never really worked right on the Kindle 1. The DX starts shipping next Wednesday. Mine’s due to arrive on Friday. I’ll let everyone know how it goes :-).