My First: Experiencing the Kindle

I had never really used an e-reader before, so when I got the Kindle for a week I figured I would either want to go out and buy one immediately, especially since books are so much cheaper through e-pub, or I would stick to my printed copies. Sadly, my experience has left me in the latter category, for now.

Upon looking at the Kindle, I thought, "This is not aesthetically pleasing at all." It wasn't shiny nor was there any color - anywhere -. However, the cover page reminded me of Renaissance art, which I am a big fan of, so I figure maybe I'll be more inclined to like this device if I turned it on. I liked the ease of turning it on, just a simple slide of the button; that was a plus; however, there was not hold button to keep it from accidentally turning off or on, and then I realized that the setting of the screen hadn't deviated much from the cover; it was still just a dull gray background and black font. It took me a while to get acclimated to having the keyboard right at my fingertips and how to use the "Home," "Back," and arrow keys without completely losing my place in the book. I thought it was rather strange that the full keyboard was missing numbers, especially when the idea occurred to me that I could use folio as my page marker.  After a little prodding, I found the numbers under the "Sym" key, but why couldn't they have placed the numbers on the keyboard as most devices do?

On the bright side, it was very easy to read on the device, a major plus, but I just couldn't read on it for very long, whether it was boredom from the gray and black or me just not being use to reading on e-readers, I don't know. I don't even know what I was expecting the Kindle to be able to do or what kind of experience it was suppose to leave me with. But, what I do know is the Kindle isn't going to replace my prints because, for being the first, it wasn't very satisfying.