So I did not take the decision to buy a Kindle 2 lightly. New technology is great, but I always think about how the price is going to come down in a year or 6 months. There is also the fact that I have seen a number of “gotta haves” turn into dust collectors. Some examples include the hand-held gps, iPod, even my Wii Fit is not getting much use. Maybe I am fickle or maybe just busy. Something really has to fit into the life I have and not the life I envision have. Anyway back to the Kindle.

- Amazon’s Amazing E-Book Reader
So what did I think… I love it… it takes something I do every day and makes it better. I try to spend a hour reading in the evening every night. I am mostly into non-fiction and magazines. I like to be able to pick something up, jump around and put it down. There is not a lot of continuity in my reading. The Kindle is perfect for that.
I subscribe to a lot of magazines where I am really interested in 30% of the content. Blogs are actually much more focused and of more interest to me, but I hate reading a computer. The Kindle lets me get to the content that I crave.
The Kindle 2 comes with a whispernet feature that allows you to connect to the internet for free. This is also how it downloads its content. If you want to read blogs you have 2 choices:
1) You can subscribe for a month fee ($1 to $2 each) to a selection of several hundred blogs that Amazon offers.
Pros:
- All the content is downloaded to the Kindle and can be view when not connected or in airplane mode.
- There is a section list that easily allows you to browse the content.
2) You can point the Kindle’s web browser at a moblie reader app (eg Google Reader mobile) and use it to read any blog out there.
Pros:
- This is free.
- It is not limited content provided by Amazon.
I thought I would be all over the free reader application, but after a couple of weeks with my Kindle I am finding the latency, and lack of organization a big disappointment. Have Amazon download all of the content to my Kinlde and give me a table of contents seems to be worth the extra dollars.
So to summarize, the feature that is really impressing me is the ability to get to blog content. And I think the work arounds to get to the free content are probably not worth it, if the content is available as a subscription from Amazon.