Amazon has introduced the Kindle e-book reader which has been getting a lot of hype in the tech world. The purpose of the Kindle is to do one thing and do it well, replace your stack of paper back books with a single light weight, long life, simple device for reading books. Why does the Kindle have a keyboard and cell phone connection?

The Kindle can do more than read books, it uses Sprint's EVDO data network to connect tot he internet. There is no subscription sign up or fees required to access this network. Think this sounds like a good deal? Think again, Amazon is going to nickel and dime you to death on content. After you paid $399.00 for the device, you will pay for every book through Amazon. Best Sellers run about $10 each, public domain books costs $1.99. You can subscribe to RSS feeds, but you will pay $1.00 a month for each feed. These are the same feeds that are available on your computer for free. You can also get newspapers, but again you will pay. There doesn't seem to be anyway to get content onto the Kindle for free, you will pay Amazon for everything.

I don't have a problem with Amazon charging for content, or even all the content, but only if the hardware is free or cheap.

I didn't even write about the hardware, the screen or it's very 1990's look. I will leave it to people who have one to talk about those things. Most of the reviews I've read have been in the "meh" or negative category with a small number that really like it. I've been using Palm devices for reading books and RSS feeds. I expect my future iPhone to have this same capability. This one isn't for me and I doubt any device which is designed around business model instead of the users will ever be.

[Update 12/02/07 12:41 PM] I should note, I also don't like the Sony PRS-500 e-book reader. It has it's own list of issues, some of them similar to the Kindle. At least it's not as ugly.