I’ve had my Amazon Kindle (Wi-Fi only) e-reader for a little over a week now. I don’t regret my purchase at all. It’s an absolute joy to use.  The screen is so good that I’m not sure how you could make it look more like paper.

The Kindle solves a couple problems for me. For one, I’m running out of room for new books. I have a lot of books I may never open again, for for some reason, I feel compelled to keep them. Storage is even harder considering that many of my books are programming and tech books that are thick and heavy. I have a couple cheap bookshelves that probably couldn’t take another pound. With the Kindle, I could fit every book I own into it’s light, 7-inch frame. Granted, there aren’t many of the books I will repurchase for the Kindle, but considering I’ll be buying new tech books for the rest of my life, the Kindle will be hosting thousands of pages of silicon-derived goodness before you know it.

The second problem my Kindle solves is the closest bookstore is an hour and half away. I know I can buy books online, straight from Amazon, but I really like the fact that I can get previews of books right on the Kindle. I realize Amazon has allowed you look inside books on it’s website for a long time, but I really do prefer the Kindle’s paper-like screen for reading longer works. There’s also the instant-gratification aspect of having a book in under a minute. That will come in very handy the next time I get stuck trying to configure a Squid proxy server and need to figure out the problem 10 minute ago.

I think the Kindle will even allow me to start reading more fiction, since it’s so easy to tote around. While I’m waiting for Beck to come out of Bath and Body Works, I can catch up on some reading. I’m currently working my way through Terry Goodkind’s Wizard’s First Rule, the first book in the Sword of Truth series. And since the Kindle has a decent WebKit-based web browser built-in, I can always catch up on the latest news or Facebook gossip anywhere I can snag some free wi-fi.

If anybody has been sitting on the fence as to whether an e-reader is worth it, I can tell you they are if you like reading at all. As always, your mileage may vary, but for me, it was a very wise purchase.