I got my Kindle.

So far, it is pretty great, except that Sprint coverage in my house is basically nonexistant, so I haven't been able to play with the wireless features much. It is ridiculously easy to put books on there using USB, though it's not super-intuitive how to get the Amazon purchased files to your computer (by default, they get sent wirelessly, and the only way to download the actual files is through your Amazon Media Library, rather than just choosing "download" as an option at purchase). Once I figured that out, though, it's a simple copy-to-USB-drive to put them on the Kindle. Besides the books available from Amazon, manybooks.net has put their books in Kindle format, so there are lots of out-of-copyright books available for free. Neat!

Also tested the conversion feature on a long word document (a draft for a book a friend wrote) and all of AJ Hall's Lopiverse HP fics (which were compressed HTML files). Both conversions seemed to work perfectly, and it's free if you transfer by USB. The only annoying thing is that it puts my e-mail as the Author, instead of asking me the real author's name.

In terms of reading, I haven't had time to really sit and read it for long periods of time, so I can't comment on ergonomics yet. But the screen is beautiful. Really looks almost exactly like paper, with the ability to change font sizes and look up words on demand. It's pretty light - lighter than most hardcover books - but not as light as a paperback, so we'll see if that annoys me. Of course, the fact that it doesn't close if you put it down on a lap, etc, means I can read in ways outside of the norm, and I'm sure I'll be experimenting with that on my long car ride tomorrow.

ETA: I really can't get over this e-ink screen. Except for the fact that I SEE IT CHANGING, I would assume that every screen was a printed sticker on top of the screen. It's exactly like reading printed material. Just astonishing.

I saw a woman reading one in the Seattle airport this afternoon--she said she was loving it.

tommyrot, I just read that entire thing in Stephen Fry voice, then saw the end of your post. Hee!

If I had a bit more time, I'd write you a program to do that Wolfram. If you don't have one by Wednesday next week, I could probably write one in my dead time. Just a polling thread to check the directory, a UI to set up emails, email server, the directory to check etc.., a little save and load code, and a thread synchronization class.

Thanks for the offer, Gud! Somebody suggested I contact tech support to see what options they may have before doing a workaround so I'm going to follow up on that this week, but I'll keep you posted.

Given everything I've read about the Kindle, I think that I might want one. I have a visceral love for real books and will always buy them, but for traveling?? I would kill to not have to drag books and books in my carry-on.

Kindle rocks hard at reading and purchasing books. The web browser is less awesome being rather slow and buggy (posting now from it) but usable. if i didn't have a treo with unlimited data I might use it often. I will definitely be checking for most books in Kindle format now, though.

I have no real interest in it as a web browser anyway, so that's not a problem. I think they're totally oversold right now anyway, but maybe by next summer I can pick one up.

I'm sick of my Treo crashing all the time. What should I replace it with? (OTHER than an iPhone...something with a real keyboard that I can actually afford would be nice.)

I'm amazed Apple hasn't hopped on the eBook train with the iPhone yet. They've got all the technology already out there, they just need a bit of software and to integrate it into iTunes for purchasing.

By the way - a month of iPhone thoughts: battery life sucks, software bugs are just stupid (why oh why can't you web browse and listen to music without it crashing? Seriously?), "Notes" function is pointless 'cos it's not synchronised, camera isn't very good, lack of Flash support in browser is seriously annoying. I still love it, but it's gonna take them a while to fix the software issues.

If you jailbreak it, you can read some eBooks on the iPhone pretty well. But its not the same technology. The difference between the LCD screen and the e-Ink is astonishing for reading.

If I were going to replace the Treo with something non-Palm and non-Apple, it would be the Blackberry 8800. Or one of the wing-style Nokias.