[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by DrMoze

I find it amazing that some people try to rationalize the Kindle's 'ugly' design by saying it is like a worn book or somesuch. Pshaw. (Can't believe I typed that!)

It's not about "rationalisation", or at least, not in the "amazed" pejorative sense you appear to intend. For some of us it is about figuring out why they would design it "ugly". Amazon are not stupid - any assumptions of stupidity are too easily applied to be helpful. It is somewhat about figuring out why they would take it down that route (and, for some, why that would appeal).

You can say "Pshaw" until the cows come home, but it doesn't change that Amazon have brought it out with that design, that some folks don't find it "ugly" (or at least they might find it "ugly" in that idiosyncratic away that has us call the wrinkled up little turd-on-legs known as E.T., "cute"), and that the thing seems to be selling quite well despite its rampant "ugliness".

Both the Sony Reader and Bookeen are ebook devices that have a sleek, simple, attractive design.

They are...nice. In the same way that the iPod is...nice. Yep, they're sleek, yes they're simple, yes they're "attractive" in a conventional kind of way. It's a whole lot of "pretty" going on following a current trend. Like folks who buy family sedans regardless of what they look like, and in colours that are selling cheap, or folks who buy Saab's and Volvo's in bright, screaming yellow because of the "Viva la UGLY" factor (apologies for the pseudo-French), some people just don't want to buy into the latest design "trend" or just don't care.

Amazon has no excuse for designing a klunky, cheap-looking (white plastic!) device that is not aesthetically appealing. (I don't buy the wedge shape either--I never fold pages back behind a book, and my books lie flat when read.) As nice as many of the features may be, and as well as it may work, they could have designed a nicer-looking product. There's no reason to justify a poor design.

Correct, there isn't. However, since you have defined "poor" as being "not aesthetically appealling", and since aesthetics are almost entirely subjective, and since the aesthetics of this device have not dissuaded them being sold in large numbers, your statement is only correct for a limited value of the word, "correct". You've provided good reasons why you, literally and figuratively "don't buy it", but they don't invalidate those of others.

You would appear to be trying to convince folk that it is ugly, and that if they differ in their opinion to you, they don't just have different opinions, but that they are wrong, and Amazon is wrong. That's an interesting ideological tact to take - good luck with that. You might want to consider that "worn book" observations and analogies have just as much value, and just as little, as your "clunky" observations.

I like the Sony Reader, and the Cybook, and the Iliad - their aesthetics follow current convention as to what constitutes an attractively-designed technological gizmo. I like the Kindle because it would appear to be differentiating itself from being just another attractively-designed technological gizmo; with devices merging towards the same thing and design (phones, UMPCs, MP3 players, PDAs, GPS units, tablet PCs), I don't mind a device coming out with the "I'm not one of them" idiosyncrasy. I'd rather see a "clunky"-looking device than something that looks like another iPod, for instance.

In the end though, it's another device that works well to read books on, and has practical features that appeal (even if it will never make its way to Oz). Not perfect, but none of them are. Appearances, to many, are secondary.

Cheers,
Marc