Even though my Kindle was supposed to arrive the day I left for Vegas, the Amazon elves worked extra hard and it showed up today. I don’t ever expect a gadget to replace books, but I thought Kindle would be great for traveling as I don’t have to drag 3+ books with me. Anyway..

Color me impressed. (Sorry for the craptastic pictures, the morning light was coming into my kitchen window).

Here are the requisite un-boxing pictures. I wouldn’t be a blogger without ‘em.

First thing that struck me was how small it actually is. For whatever reason, looking at pictures online I thought it was going to be pretty big. The whole thing is basically smaller than my palm:

From some of what I had read on it, I expected it to come pre-registered to my Amazon account and I expected my books to load as soon as I turned it on. I was a little disappointed, but it gave me a chance to try out the keyboard to put in my email and password. The keyboard is actually great. By no means is it a desktop keyboard, but it beats a Treo or a Sidekick any day. Right off the bat I was able to easily type my info in. By the time I hit enter and went back to the home screen, the books I had purchased were available on the Kindle. Now that is magic.

The last thing is the screen. I think its absolutely fantastic. You can read it at any angle, and it looks just like paper. Yes the milliseconds while it changes pages are annoying, but its really not that bad. Definitely not a deal breaker by any means.

I’ll update this post if anyone has any specific questions.

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