Marco.org

Just played with a Kindle for the first time in real life. I only spent a few seconds with it, but got some quick impressions:

• It’s a bit smaller and much thinner than I expected.
• Its blocky, 1990-cordless-phone look is less apparent than I thought.
• The screen readability and resolution are excellent.
• Clearly, Amazon didn’t expect anyone to actually use the keyboard.
• There’s a significant, dealbreaking delay between when you push the page-change buttons and when the page actually starts the smear-change. This completely breaks the flow of reading, and is fatal for me. Hopefully the device will be faster in future versions.

Bottom line? A faster version at a lower price point will be great. Will reconsider in a few years.