I love it when Amazon sends me things early, and the Kindle was no exception; the expected delivery date was 14 May, and it arrived 11 May instead. I have been using the Kindle for the past few days (heavily), and by now feel I really know its ins and outs. A few things to note. One day of solid internet usage (googling things, buying things from the Kindle store, downloading periodicals) was enough to drain my Kindle's battery. I am not sure the exact usage that gives 1 week of battery life with the wireless on, but 1 day definitely falls far short of 1 week. However, with the wireless off, the Kindle's battery life really is phenomenal, and it looks like it might go for two weeks; in a few hours of book-reading usage, the battery doesn't even dip down a sliver.
Truly, I prefer the Kindle this way, wireless off. It's a "real book" this way. The UNIX philosophy is to make something that does it's one job supremely well. Back when computers were just getting started, Fujitsu made a machine that had 2-3 weeks of battery life. What happened to those computers? They've been so jam-packed with features that to attain such battery life again is going to require some very innovative technology. So after experimenting with all the extra features in the Kindle (the web browser, subscriptions to the NY Times, Reader's Digest, and Science News, for which I was keeping the wireless on even when not using the web browser, for Whispernet sync), I ditched them all, and am just enjoying my books (PDFs and books from the Kindle store), and I am tremendously impressed with the great battery life and readability in sunlight (it even looks better and less grey in the sunlight).
Kindle books format beautifully when the publisher does their job right. I notice Springer books tend to be well-formatted, but McGraw-Hill texts have some issues (blurry images... unforgivable in my mind. Hopefully they will fix this soon). So be careful to sample books before you buy them, for in technical books, blurry images are not only an eyesore, but a serious problem.
PDFs format beautifully, but one slight problem is that the autocrop doesn't always work consistently. It's a not a problem with the PDF itself, for I've seen the very same page appear autocropped, and appear in the dead-center of the page, very small. I've resolved it by rotating into landscape mode, returning to portrait, and re-opening the PDF file. It doesn't happen always, and I am sure a software update could fix this.
Being able to carry all my books with me as I go is incredibly useful. Last week my computer crashed, but because of my Kindle, I've been able to remain productive. Nearly all the books on my Kindle are for my math studies, and the Kindle enables me to read them in a way easy on the eyes, in a convenient-to-carry package. The lack of color, for me, is a plus, as I prefer black-and-white in technical texts.
My suggestions for improvement are to fix the problems I've mentioned, to make deals with more publishers so more math books can be available on the Kindle (I would be thrilled if Amazon got Dover to provide their books on the Kindle), and to keep the Kindle the simple and easy-to-use device that it is.
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