I brought it home, played with it for a while but then put it back in the box and went to bed, my heart heavy with buyer’s remorse. I envisioned this pathetic electronic toy sitting alone on the denuded shelves of the bookcase in my office. Why would I want to read a book with no beautiful cover enticing me as to the contents therein? I planned to send it back.

But by midmorning the next day I was in love with it. Well, not completely – more like I was in love with the potential. It sort of reminds me of the first laptop I had, in the mid-90’s (yes, smart ass, back in the Paleolithic). Of course DOS was a real yuck compared to Windows, but back then it was pretty cool largely because it was all we had.

So, this Kindle, for which I paid three hundred bucks, is pretty easy to read on, it’s smaller than holding a newspaper or book on your lap, especially on a plane, which is where I gave it an early and major test run. It’s real portable, holds a charge for a long time, and you can read it in bright sunlight. I read a book for a while, then switched to the NY Times when I got tired of fiction. The only real drawback is that other peeps want to ask you about it. Also, the fact that almost as soon as I pressed “BUY” on Amazon, Sony and everybody else shoveled their own versions of Kindle out the door. How long will it be before I wish I had one of the new ones?

I especially like that I can usually access a newspaper via Amazon’s Whispernet even if there’s no Internet connection for my laptop. So I pay 75 cents for that day’s NY Times, and I can take it anywhere and read it for as long as I want.

Bummer aspects: primitive graphics, navigation reminds me of the days before they invented the mouse or touchpad (it’s all, essentially, up, down and sideways-moving arrows). I can’t tell what page I’m on (section 3145 doesn’t mean anything), and even tho you can bookmark and make notes while you’re reading, if you want to flip back to that page where you remember seeing a clever phrase or the first appearance of the hideous murderer, based simply on your memory that it was about a third of the way thru the book, on the left-hand page up near the top – forget it. Just forget it.

Bottom line: I like it, and when Amazon improves it (color, better graphics, better navigation) I’ll buy the new one, too.