Bethanne Patrick Likes Her New Kindle

My favorite blogger at Publishers Weekly, Bethanne Patrick, talks about her initial reaction to her Kindle in this post. The bottom line: She likes what she sees. The reading experience is very pleasant and the Whispernet service is extremely convenient and reliable. Sure, the device itself looks like something from the ColecoVision era, but hey, it does what it needs to do...which got me to thinking...

I'm about as far as you can get from being an Apple/Mac fan. I admire Apple's product line and I tip my hat to their design prowess, but I don't buy a gadget to look at it. I buy it for what it does, not for what it looks like. I have the cheapest MP3 player on the planet but it sounds every bit as good as any other high-end device I've ever listened to; plus, it's expandable via an SD card slot and is tiny enough to fit very comfortably in my shirt pocket. What more could I ask for?

So when it comes to an e-book reader, I guess I don't care so much what it looks like as long as it makes it easy to obtain and read content. Period. I don't care if Kindle 2.0, 3.0 and beyond all look just like Kindle 1.0, but I sure hope the price comes down and the feature set expands in future versions.