Jo Francis: Me and my Kindle – and its disappointing box

There’s a great deal of noise and excitement at the moment about the many and varied announcements being made at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. “Ford plans to let drivers Tweet from the road”, and “World’s largest TV at 152 inches unveiled”, being but a couple of eye-popping examples.

A raft of new e-readers and slate devices has also been making headlines (as well as annoying my colleague Matt Whipp), which prompted me to go and investigate a present that’s been languishing in its box since Boxing Day. That gift being an Amazon Kindle.

This was an utterly unexpected arrival as the only thing on my Christmas list this year was a backgammon set. Here’s an edited selection of the reaction from a variety of industry chums to its appearance: “It’s witchcraft. Burn it!”, “Throw it away or give it to the Salvation Army”, “Turncoat” and “I suggest you put it in the bin before I tell someone”.

Suitably amused, I then proceeded to pretty much immediately drop the thing the first time I started reading through the user guide. Oops. Still, I can at least testify to its robustness as it’s still working. Also the battery life must be pretty good because it’s still happily functioning on its initial pre-Christmas charge. But then, it has spent the past fortnight in its box…

Which reminds me. The box. Having seen pictures of the Kindle’s snazzy packaging when it was only available in America, I have to say that the version we receive in the UK is a bit of disappointment. It’s clever enough, in that it arrives in a familiar Amazon cardboard pack. Integrated into this is a white moulded interior tray and liner that holds the device and its accessories, but it’s hardly a thing of beauty to be retained, unlike the original Stateside version. Perhaps this is because Kindles bound for the UK still ship from the States, so they needed something as lightweight as possible. But I can’t help feeling we’re a bit short-changed.

As for the most important aspect, the reading experience, I must reserve judgement for a later date. You see, I still have a few real books on the go.

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