To Kindle, or not to Kindle, that is the Question

I know, I know, I’ve been a bit of a bad boy the past week or so in terms of keeping up with the blog. Not a single, solitary entry. It’s not that I haven’t had anything to write about, it’s just that I haven’t been able to find the time to write it.

Okay, that’s not 100% true. You’ll see why in a second.

Work has been  bit crazy this week which has left me shattered when I get home. Add to that a very active almost-4-year-old running around the house and a wifey who’s not in the best health and is miserable because of it, and my ‘alone’ time (usually after everyone else has gone to bed) suddenly becomes very, very precious.

And I’ve been using that ‘alone’ time to do some reading instead of writing. A waste of time? No, not in the slightest. A good writer is first a good reader and I haven’t been doing nearly enough reading in recent months. So I’ve been catching up. I’ve also been slowly working my way through the first draft of Eternally & Evermore – tweaking, adding, cutting and generally turning it into a more polished second draft.

Now, I love a good book. Something solid that you can hold in your hand. Something you can feel, smell and drop in the bath once in a while (yes, I’ve dropped books in the bath before now). But, much of what I’m reading is currently published electronically and I really don’t fancy printing it all out. Reading on the laptop is not the most comfortable thing to do, though. Which leaves me with a problem. My new phone has helped. It’s a G1 – a Google android phone – and so I can use it to read e-books on – even if the screen is a bit on the small side. Let’s just say it’s not an ideal solution.

This is why I’m quite excited by Amazon’s realisation that there is indeed a world beyond the USA and their long-awaited release of the Kindle to the UK market. Okay, so it has to be shipped in from the US, we have to pay import taxes and it only comes with a US power adaptor, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.

So, now, I have a dilemma. Do I get one? Do I become a UK ‘early adopter’? Because, honestly, I’m fairly happy reading on my phone. But it does drain the battery something terrible and that screen on the Kindle does look much bigger and easier to read.

But then there’s the fact that the Kindle is tied to the Kindle store. The tie-in to iTunes is the reason I didn’t buy an iPod or iPhone, so can I justify buying a similarly tied-in reading device?

I honestly don’t know. I’m tempted to wait a year. Prices will fall in that time, won’t they? But they said that about iPods and Apple were able to constantly change the device to keep it as a ‘premium’ product. So will the other e-readers fall in price? The Sony reader hasn’t shown any signs of a price drop yet.

I honestly don’t quite know what to do. But I must admit that getting myself a Christmas present this year is very, very tempting.