Not being one to gush, I rated it good.
This is my first dedicated eReader, but I have read many books on Palm PDA's, and tried to read books on my current BlackBerry.
Pluses:
--Excellent for long texts read in bright light.
--Better than expected 3G web performance considering there is no monthly fee. Seems to load the mobile.nytimes.com, over AT&T 3G, faster than my BlackBerry which is on the same network. Reading and sending of simple Gmail emails performs acceptably.
--Good background music feature. (I've never been much for music while reading before, but, then, I never tried it before with Françoise Hardy singing in languages I don't know. A perfect voice to read by!)
Not so great:
--My middle age eyes like backlighting. Good thing I waited for eInk Pearl to buy one of these, but I still would like a white, not grey, background. In some indoor lighting conditions, I find it easier to read a conventional book than the Kindle 3 with a much larger font. (US$60 for a lighted case seemed too self-indulgent. Suggestions as to the best third party light for a Kindle 3 that's always in the standard Amazon case are welcome.)
--Too few settings options. I want larger than average fonts in every application, and must keep on going to menus to get it. My guess is that there will be a Kindle Store app before long to deal with such issues, and if it's $5 or less I'll withdraw this criticism
-- They must be out there, but I have yet to find a pdf that is pleasant to read on this device.
-- I'm having trouble with some web sites like washingtonpost.com (sometimes displays the HTML code!), but maybe I'll find a way around this.
-- Crashes. I've had two in two days. This may be good for life on the technological bleeding edge, but an awesome device, or even my average late-model PC, has zero.