KINDLE FIRE UPDATE: So I’ve used mine to read several novels, currently including Vernor Vinge’s Children of the Sky, and I still like it. It’s easy to carry around and easy to read. I do prefer the double-page display you can get on the iPad, but the price you pay for that is that the iPad is twice as big, and costs more than twice as much. Tradeoffs. Basically, think of the Fire as a Kindle-with-benefits, rather than a junior iPad.

The Vinge book is good, by the way.

UPDATE: A reader sends this negative review from the NYT. I have to say, the power button is a nonissue to me, I don’t care about the privacy part, and the touchscreen works okay for me — but I have a surprisingly delicate touch given that I have very large hands. I agree that the web-browing is kinda slow, as I mentioned in my first review, but I almost never use it for that. As I say, it’s a Kindle with benefits, not an iPad replacement.

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the privacy front, another reader emails:

The NYT is wrong. You can configure the device with a password. I’ve done so, and need to enter the password to use the device.

But of course it’s the NYT, so it’s hardly surprising… Perhaps there will be a correction.

(I’d send you a screen shot, but I left mine at home today. Here are the instructions on how to do it.)

Thanks!