Forgot to mention this a couple weeks back.

My daughter got a kindle for her Birthday. The next day she went out and bought two hardback and two paperback books that she’d been wanting.

Sounds like a great irony, huh? I can’t fault her though. The hardbacks were just $3 more than the Kindle download of the same book and the paperbacks were the same price or less than the download. My daughter is an avid reader and is kind of old-skool (like her father) where she appreciates books – the physical book – and having it in her hands.

Where we expect the Kindle to shine is with schoolwork. She’s in honors reading and they have much assigned reading. For books she doesn’t care to own and needs to study on academic level the built in tools (dictionary, search, highlighting, etc) will really come in handy. She’s also downloaded a bunch of freebies – mostly classics and public domain stuff that she wouldn’t necessarily buy, but will glance at for free.

But other than that, it’s a glorified dictionary for when she doesn’t have her laptop nearby. (which is never)

All in all, I’m glad we didn’t buy it for her because it seems to be exactly what I suspected it was – a unitasker (to use Alton Brown terminology). And in this day and age, that seems like such an antiquated idea. Kindle, phone, GPS, ipod, laptop (or netbook or iPad) – how many fucking things can you carry around? I’ve reduced my life to 2 devices that do all of that – my phone and my laptop…and I can’t wait for those two to merge into the one final device we’re inevitably heading towards. Seems like the ability to declutter – all of your records, tapes or CD’s (depending on your age) on one device and all of your books on another, and all of your maps and directions in another all of your contacts addresses and phone numbers in another has just led to a new kind of clutter…device clutter. It’s a pet peeve. What can I say?

So yeah, the Kindle seems to serve a pretty specific purpose (it’s an iPod for your books), but doesn’t necessarily save money or add convenience unless you wish you could carry your entire library with you…and to me it’s not like carrying all of your music with you because you’re most likely not going to read hundreds or thousands (or even more than a handful) of books at a time.

Maybe I’m just too old and don’t get it?