[zartemis]

A few thoughts after a day's use -- some contrary to popular experience:

The mirrored LED: unlike most, I do not like it much. In some light and angles, I cannot see it at all and have to shift the book around to figure out what I'm selecting.

The scroll wheel: as at least one other person has mentioned, it can sometimes be hard to click it without scrolling it, resulting in the wrong selection. Several times I hit the back key automatically since it felt intuitively as though that would be the 'enter' after scrolling. I use a logitech mouse with the free-spinning scroll wheel on my PC and wish I had similar ability move the Kindle wheel.

The case: I like it. I find it attractive and one person at a coffeehouse who came up to check it out said that in the case, it wasn't so ugly. I also find that the case enables me to hold the Kindle without pressing the buttons -- I fold back the cover and wrap the strap around the backside -- I can then wedge a thumb or finger in between and hold it securely or just grab the case at any edge. My Kindle stays in securely to the little latch, I haven't had it come loose yet.

The next/prev page buttons: Yes, they do make it hard to hold without pressing. This is very annoying. I might get up to make an order at the coffehouse and by the time I sit back down, who knows what page it will be on and how far from where I was -- there is no fast way to flip through the book and get back -- the slow page refesh means that finding my place may be a several minute ordeal. (Yes, I've played with go to location). Like others, I'd very much like the ability remap the keys -- the prev page button is in the perfect place for one of my preferred one-handed holding methods to have a NEXT page function instead. If those two keys on the left were swapped it would be a much better one-handed experience for me.

Samples: I love the length of the samples, but transitioning to buying the book is awkward. You buy the book, then you have a copy of both the sample and the full book on the kindle. If you switch to the full copy, then you've lost where you were in the text and have to refind it (which given refresh is a slow process). I would be much better if the sample could be converted to a full book seamlessly. As a partial solution, the full book should come with a bookmark where the sample ends. But this partial solution has the annoyance that:

Removing books/samples: What a hassle! Every book should have a 'remove from kindle' option on the book's main menu page. Right now I have to remember what book/sample I want to remove, go to the content manager, page through my now very long list of books, newspapers, audible books, blogs, samples, etc, check the item, then select remove. The confirmation screen does not say which one(s) it's removing so you hope (given how the scroll wheel selection click might have moved before the click) that you didn't mis-check an item. If there's an easier way I missed it. I makes me somewhat hesitant to try a sample of a book I'm iffy about since I know what a hassle it will be to remove it.

Amazon book recommendations: Since I like Amazon's online recommendation engine, I was happy to see that you got Kindle book recommendations when shopping on the Kindle, but I would also like to access them online from my PC. I could not find a way to view them online or to limit the regular recommendation engine to Kindle books. Also the Kindle books don't seem to update as well as the online engine, nor can you tell it you already own it and rate it from the recommendations view on the Kindle as you can when you view recommendations online.

Wireless and battery life: I wish there were a 3rd setting for the wireless switch instead of just on/off: on demand. I.e. it would be off until I told it via the software to check for new items, go to the store, or browse the web, then it would connect and stay connected until the connection was idle for a set period of time and then turn off. I keep forgetting to turn it off, I usually notice when the battery starts draining appreciably.

Despite these annoyances, I love reading on it for the most part. The real test will be how well it can keep up with getting the sorts of books I like to Kindle format (I'm not a fiction reader). Although, if The Economist ever comes to Kindle format, that alone would make it worthwhile! I'd even half-way considered getting a second Kindle for bathroom reading until I realized they wouldn't share bookmarks, so I'd have to waste time figuring out where I left off each time I switched Kindles. Way too much trouble.