In a moment of pure gadget lust and unbridled impulse, I ordered the newest Amazon Kindle within a week of it becoming available in Canada.  I’ve had it in hand for a couple weeks now, so the gloss should have worn off-but I’m still in love with it.  The Kindle is a great device, and anyone who reads a lot of books should consider picking one up.

The size and weight of the kindle-1/3 of an inch thick and 10.2 ounces (or .85 cm thick and 290 grams for us civilized folk) don’t really describe how wonderful the kindle feels in the hand-because the device is perfectly balanced.  Most of the weight is distributed in the bottom of the device, so that it perfectly settles into your hand when you’re holding it at with your thumb over the “Next Page” button.

As a book reader, the Kindle is basically a screen with buttons.  In short, the screen is extremely easy on the eyes and the buttons are nicely responsive, with a nice tactile click to them that’s neither too stiff or too loose.  The kindle can recharge from an outlet or via a USB cable and has an extremely generous battery life.

The Kindle store itself is dangerously convenient, and works exactly as advertised-one click and the book should download to your kindle.  Prices are generally fair-while classics and books in the public domain are dirt cheap, most books are priced at levels equivalent to a relatively classy used bookstore.

There are flaws.  Amazon needs to expand the Kindle store’s Canadian section.  More than once I’ve searched for a book to find it’s only available in the US Kindle store.  I did encounter one hiccup-because each book is its own transaction, ordering a lot of books at once can trip your credit card’s security features.  A lot of people have written about the drawbacks of having a device tied to a proprietary format and a particular supplier, and the possibility that support for the device might someday be discontinued.  After actually using the kindle, I have to say that while I understand those concerns, they don’t really dampen my enthusiasm.  I’ve never had enough space to keep all the books I buy after I finish reading them-and I’ve never really wanted to.  The kindle is an insanely convenient delivery device for reasonably priced books, nothing more and nothing less.

I predict that within 5 years we’ll start to see kindle-like devices working their way into classrooms.  So many of the Kindle’s features-simply highlight a word and click to bring up a definition, the ability to link multiple kindles to the same account, the compatibility with audiobooks and the fact that many books include text-to-speech support-scream I would make a good teaching tool. However, at $259 a pop, they’re probably well out of the budget range for now.  We can only dream.