By Allan Maurer

DURHAM, NC – I love my new wireless Kindle. It has a few drawbacks, like most digital devices, but by and large, if you’re a reader, sooner or later you’ll be buying an e-reader, and you could do worse than a Kindle.

The electronic “ink” technology is as easy to read—usually—as ink on paper. You occasionally need to adjust the way you hold it to eliminate minor—and I emphasize—minor glare. It doesn’t have back lighting, so you’ll need a clip on digital light if you plan to read it in the dark.

But because the device does not need any power to keep the page live while you read and lacks that back light, its battery lasts what seems like forever. I’ve gone a week without recharging and never got close to exhausting the battery.

It’s capacity—text does not take up much space—is enough to hold up to 3500 books. Mine has 270 digital books, including some hefty reference books, and has only used one-third of its 3 gig memory.

The six-inch size is too large to drop in a shirt or pants pocket, but drops into extra storage areas in most attaché cases and messenger bags. Google sells a leather case with a built in light that seems pricey at $50. I used an old automobile manual cover that fit it perfectly and protects it with a padded cover.

The wireless worked perfectly the first time and the only problem I had was that it dropped its wireless connection and then features—such as the one that keeps what you’re reading on top in the home page—stopped working. I called Amazon, which had me install updated firmware, but that didn’t help. Then, an online search took me to a Kindle blog post on the topic. Others had experienced a similar problem. It recommended unplugging my router and then plugging it in again, which I did.

Problem solved.

Includes browser and audio feature

Using the wireless browser, which is labeled experimental, can be a little awkward until you master moving around and typing in urls. But it worked instantly everywhere I tried it, from my home network to a McDonalds. Now when I go out for breakfast or lunch, I’ve got the New York Times, Washington Post, Raleigh News & Observer, TechJournal South or any other site right at my finger tips without needing to haul my netbook or pocket PC along.

It will also read books aloud, although I’m not crazy about the electronic voice, despite efforts to make it sound more human. You can chose a female or male reading voice. The audio is another “experimental” feature and my guess is that it will get better on future versions.

I love that the Kindle automatically opens to where I was last reading in a book. Not needing to hunt for bookmarks or guiltily dogear pages is a small but valuable feature. One thing I do not like is that navigating to deep chapters in books placed on the Kindle from other sources that the Kindle app (which is MobiPocket) is difficult.

The MobiPocket app on my Pocket PC lets me move around via the bar at the bottom, but that appears to be inactive in the Kindle, which has no touch screen features. Basically, that means if you upload a word or text doc to your Kindle, the only way to get to the back of the book is to click through page by page.

Lacks color

Other e-readers are offering color screens, but I don’t miss color on the Kindle. While I’m glad to have the web browser, I don’t plan on using it to do anything except read news and so on. While the lack of color isn’t important to me. It might be to some.

But to get color, you’re back to needing that LED screen, at least so far. If I want to read on an LED screen, I’ll use my netbook (and indeed, have read books on that, my pocket PC, and my regular computer screen). But after working with an LED screen all day and using one for other purposes as well most evenings, I really enjoy the low eye strain of reading on a Kindle.

The navigation controls, while not entirely ideal, are not so much trouble that they bother me and as I’ve gained experience using them, I barely notice their occasional short-comings. It allows you to place your ebooks in collections, a useful feature if you have as many as I do. It also lists all the titles you opened most recently if you prefer. I generally use that option.

Another experimental feature, the voice reader, a male or female electronic voice, is still a bit cold and unnatural sounding to me to use it with much pleasure, but nevertheless came in handy when I was riding in a car at night and didn’t have my LED light with me.

The ability to define any word easily and quickly while reading, to clip segments or make notes and save them to a My Clips file, is particularly useful to a student, writer, teacher or anyone else to whom reading is both necessary for work as well as pleasure.

I’ve bought several books and subscribed to a magazine and a blog, and Amazon delivers a new purchase in seconds. Amazon’s sample feature allows you to read a significant portion of a book—a couple of substantial chapters—before buying it. I’ve used that feature repeatedly. Once, the sample gave me everything I really wanted from a rare book that would cost $80 to buy. Several other times, I was sufficiently hooked to buy books I sampled.

One real plus with all e-readers that will allow you to put text, MS Word, and pdf files on your device, as Amazon does, is that you can now obtain a massive collection of fiction and nonfiction classics for free from the Gutenberg Project and other sources online, including Amazon itself and Google books. Here’s another place for classics that also has a nice selection of modern thrillers, mysteries and sci-fi that’s out of copyright: Munseys.

The Kindle software, essentially identical to Mobipockets, can also be used on a PC and assorted other mobile devices.

Amazon grumbles

I’ve heard some rumblings in the digital community about Amazon’s digital rights policies and their pressure on publishers to keep best seller prices under $10 for digital editions, but my guess is that Amazon is so much the dominant book seller now, it will continue to be a dominant player in the e-reader market, not something I’m as comfortable saying about the Barnes & Noble Nook, Sony’s entry or other devices.

The NOOK also uses E-Ink technology and allows you to lend the books you buy. I read recently that someone even downloaded the mobile game “Angry Birds” and played on a color Nook. From what I’ve read and heard, it’s likely to be a strong player, especially now that it offers competitive pricing (with the least expensive model only $149. Although you have to be concerned about the state of Borders’ survival, considering its financial difficulties, lately.

While those other readers offer some enhanced features and clearly have their fans, I’d bet money that the Kindle stays right up there in the e-reader wars.