Reigniting the Kindle debate

There was a pun there waiting to happen, but I ignored it. Anyway, here and there I have speculated about getting an e-reader, particularly a Kindle. It now seems that they are not anywhere near as tough as Amazon would like everyone to believe. The muckraker himself, Josh Marshall, tells the the story of his Kindle.

When last we spoke, I was telling you about my Kindle's sudden demise. Or rather the apparently sudden demise of its screen. One of the reasons I like sharing things with you is that I immediately find out more than I could possibly have learned on my own about the subject. So this is what I've found out so far.

First, my Kindle is pretty clearly toast. The screen is broken, which I guess is probably pretty obvious from the picture (but denial goes a long way). And this actually seems to happen a lot. It turns out that the eInk which the whole system is based on has a layer of glass in it. And it's actually quite fragile. It seems like quite a few of you have had the same thing happen to yours.

If I understand this right, a Kindle is only as tough as a thin layer of glass?!!

think I'll stick with the old technology for awhile yet - I've never had a book shatter.