sony reader less bulky, more battery life 100bucks cheaper lacks the wifi tho.

I think I'm going to buy one of these. I imagine it might be nice to have one on a long trans-Atlantic flight, especially if that flight had wifi.

@Valicious:

Agreed.
I can add my own content, thanks.
No wifi needed to read books.

I still refuse to believe people are actually buying these things. To me it's just so obviously useless and overpriced; I can see why a few people with money to blow would get one, but to think that they are selling out in droves further erodes my faith in society.

im sure they'll sell the 6 they have in stock by the end of the day so they can claim it's wildly popular and now sold out again.

Now that they are back, I may have to jump on the wagon with Braak and get one of these.

I wouldn't be caught dead with one of those. Is it not the most horrid looking device ever made?

Well I actually like to read, and I like gadgets, so really this is the perfect combination. But lets be honest folks soulfinger is right, the popularity of these things is exagerated

@Charles: Erodes your faith in society? Give me a break. If you live in the city or commute frequently, you read a lot and don't have space for a lot of books, it's a great idea. If you read the NYT or WSJ every day, it pays for itself with ecofriendliness in a few months.

You know what erodes my faith in society? Blood for oil. Genocide. Pervasive institutional racism in first-world countries. Sweatshop labor. Dead puppies.

But an expensive, useful, slightly unattractive gadget? C'mon.

The Kindle doesn't do Wifi- it's Sprint's EVDO network.

I've been using a kindle for the past 5 days- it's really pretty cool. Easy to read on and small, portable, and is easy on the eyes.

The Kindle also adds the keyboard to the utility of hte Sony, and hte Search feature is pretty cool. INtegrated web browsing and dictionary lookup is pretty tight.

So you think owning one puts you in a position evaluate it? You're killing the mood.

@itchytooth: That was @styrofoam.

@aldenf82: Amen to that, I have the first gen Sony reader. It is a better looking device for sure, but after I received mine Kindle I have to say that it's head and shoulders better than the Sony.

First, the screen is clearer than the Sony. I don't know why that is since both are suppose to be the first gen e-ink display with 4 shades of gray.

Second, the wireless is so useful you wouldn't believe it! Not having to connect to the PC to get new stuff is wonderfully easy.

Third, there are certain functionality in the Kindle that's just not there with the Sony. You can highlight passages and download them to your PC for notes. I use to have to actually copy passages by hand with Sony. The Kindle also allows you to add your own notes to books just like physical books where you can write on the margins.

Fourth, you CAN add your own books by USB connection so long as it's in TXT or the mobi formats. I'm hoping they'll add additional formats later with a firmware change.

Fifth, firmware changes and any other administrative functions are done for you automatically through the wireless. Not so with the Sony as you would have to figure out if they have a new update, download and install on your reader.

Sixth, the Amazon bookstore is better, has more choices and cheaper than Sony's. They even keep track of your bookmarks and backs up your purchases for you so that you have access to your library anywhere there's a Sprint signal.

There are many other reasons to choose the Kindle over the Sony.

Yes, it is not sleek like the Sony, but it's infinitely more useful than the Sony reader.

I guess the analogy I would give is that would you marry a woman who's a 10 in looks but lacking in every other department including being a so-so lover OR would you marry a woman who's a 9 in just about every department except a 5 in the looks department? Yes, we would rather choose one that's good looking AND good everything else but we don't have that choice available to us at this time. For some people it's a difficult choice but I think we would all agree that in the long run, we be happier with the latter.

mine = my

Wow, one of the ugliest pieces of industrial design. Ever.

I wouldn't use that thing in public.

T.

If I was blowing 400$ on a gadget, I think I would get a 16GB iPod Touch, (with my work discount) and buy a couple paperbacks.

I like the Kindle, but wouldn't want to spend that kind of money for one. It would be great for making my load lighter, but I'd need a lot of titles available and am not sure how happy I'd be not having a hard copy backup (unless I buy one). For now I'll stick to print.

The Kindle's design makes it so easy to imagine it put out to pasture in a cardboard box outside an apartment building by the dumpster, flanked by an old toaster, desk lamp and stack of floppy disks. Not the impression that's going to encourage an investment of $400.

@Charles: Any more useless than the majority of gadgets we see on this site?

@aldenf82: Agreed except for the NYT and WSJ because they suck.

@Noobs-R-Us: The second gen Sony has an updated screen that has 16 levels of greyscale so I doubt that it's the same as the screen on the Kindle which has 4 levels of greyscale. However, the Kindle seems to have an updated screen from the first gen Sony. 1.5G in Apple parlance? LOL

But in general, the Kindle has a lot of great features which I wished the Sony had.

@Y2KGTP: I travel a lot so not having to carry a lot of books is a big deal especially if it's a new release in hardcover. Allowing me to choose whatever suits my mood is great since I usually have three books in rotation at any given point in time.

@styrofoam: EVDO... right. Meant to say that :) Guess not so applicable on an airplane flight.

At first I thought this thing was a piece of crap, but the more I think about, the more it starts to make sense for someone like me. A wanderer, never staying more than a year or two in one place, always carting an ever-increasing pile of boxes that contain only books. This thing would pay for itself after 40-50 books in terms of money saved on new releases AND it would save me a lot of space and moving expense.

I'm thinking of buying it for myself as a birthday present, but I can't quite convince myself to pull the trigger. Ah well, I have until 11:59pm (or until it sells out) to decide to make it a true b-day gift.

What pisses me off about this thing is that you can't burn it like you can real books. Why would anybody want it?

@aldenf82: I won't deny it's useful, but it's $400 and is chock full of features that are entirely unnecessary in first-gen hardware.

How this was ever out of stock in the first place I will never know.

@Charles: You refuse to believe that people buy Kindles? What an odd belief.

I bought one day one and my wife liked it so much she bought one too. It's a great device for heavy readers. It's small, easy to read and that EVDO connection is incredibly useful. Maybe you think it's ugly, but I only see the page when I'm reading, and, in fact it looks pretty good to me.

To me it's just a better way to read. The only reason I'll read paper books from now on is if a title I want isn't available on the Kindle.

e-books are great. DRM, however, sucks. I like the look of the sony (which is why i bought one), but want to buy from Amazon. Op, no dice. Which doesn't make sense because:

E-book store by Sony is powered by Borders.

and

Borders.com is powered by Amazon

???? You'll take my money either way. Just give me the freedom to be robbed from you in the format of my choosing.

@wilsonma29: I was comparing the first gen Sony to the Kindle. Read the first sentence of my post.

Think of how many books you could get with $400! Than you could just download the rest of the books and read them while using your Notebook computer. Sure it's larger but it's saving you money.

What I hate about the Kindle is not the hardware, but the content. Amazon managed to produce e-books by the tens of thousands, and then went and locked them up in their proprietary format, denying them to anyone who wants to use a different reader.

Personally I wouldn't ever buy a Kindle for the same reason I won't buy an IPod; my smart phone already does both, so why carry another two devices?