My Christmas present was ordered in mid-November and finally arrived yesterday. Under any other circumstance that would make me cranky.
But not since the baby blue Smith Corona manual typewriter from Santa in 1972 have I been more excited about a gift.
I liked the way Amazon rolled out the Kindle. Plenty of media interviews, lots of information on the web site, and apologizing in advance for the backorder.
Beheading in the square is too good for the Wii folks who announced back in July that there would be holiday shortages of the popular and established product and then proceeded with a full advertising schedule to stoke the fires of parental inadequacy for the thousands who could not deliver.
But Amazon.com was full of information on the Kindle including user reviews, good and bad. One persistent poster lead a crusade against the product because content could not be republished or given to others like paper books. As a writer, I say "hurray." Author rights are protected, trees are not killed and I don't pay sales tax - we're pushing nine cents on the dollar in this burg - on content.
I'll still fell a forest or two and likely buy several pork barrels for our county legislature over the next few years in support of our local independent booksellers. The Kindle is not a replacement for books, but a better way for words to go.
As God is my witness (cue orchestral crescendo here) I will never pay airport prices for a book again. Nor will I make others nervous at lunch counters trying to politely wait for the one grease-marked house copy of the newspaper to be shared.
The Kindle gives me immediate gratification when I want a title and it's electronic ink is easy on my aging eyes.
When I opened the box is didn't challenge me with its sophistication, but welcomed me with a sticker on the display area that said in simple language all I needed to do to start.
The operation is easy and ergonomic. It can be operated with one hand. It's comfortable.
I was wary of the 14-day "free trial" of subscriptions, "buying" the first in instant anticipation of the inevitable flurry of emails and on-hold 1-800 numbers that would result should I decide to cancel.
I ordered the Wall Street Journal. An email confirmed the purchase within seconds and it was on my screen.
I checked my credit card, it was not hit. I browsed the paper and went back to the Kindle Store.
I downloaded the first chapters of four books to check out and looked for the strings attached. There were none. No load charges, no "limited time" no automatic charges after "x" days.
I read all four chapters and bought two books, fully loaded into my Kindle in less than a minute from the moment I pressed buy.
No, I decided, I'd just keep reading the office copy of the WSJ, so I cancelled from my Kindle. The cancellation email immeidately appeared in my computer email box.
There is a cord to connect my Kindle to my computer, but it won't be necessary for my purposes. The Kindle is self-contained.
In the menu they call the rudimentary web browser service "experimental" and downplay it. It's actually pretty impressive. I played with it, as well as the feature that allows you to call out any word or phrase in text and with one click decide whether you want a dictionary entry, Wikipedia entry or Google search on the word. I can dog-ear pages, make notes in margins and save passages in a separate file.
These aren't cool tools buried deeply for geeks, but things that I did last night on the couch while the UPS guy who delivered it was still on his route.
My Kindle was worth the wait.


Copyright 2007 Judi Griggs