With such wonderful technology, we were hoping that the design of the Kindle would be just as progressive and well-thought-out. Unfortunately we were disappointed to find that the Kindle has a number of design shortcomings.

All four sides of the Kindle are tapered giving it a nice feel. It is lightweight and feels substantial in the hand.  However, as shown in Figure 8 almost the entire left and right side are long buttons dedicated to turning pages. On the left side the Page Back button is on the top and the Page Forward button is on the bottom. On the right side, the Page Forward button is on the top and the Page Back is on the bottom. Even after weeks of use, we found that we often had to make sure we were using the proper button to turn the page. Worse than that, it was almost impossible for us to handle the Kindle without accidently pressing those large page turning buttons.

click to enlarge
Figure 8:  Next and previous page buttons

The Kindle comes with a very nice cover, shown in Figure 9.  It is leather on the outside and suede on the inside.  Unfortunately, the Kindle itself is held in place by only two small flaps, as shown in Figure 10. These do not adequately keep the Kindle in the cover. Additionally, you cannot access the on-off buttons on the back of the Kindle without removing the Kindle from the cover. When you remove the Kindle from the cover, you are almost sure to inadvertently press one of the page buttons.

click to enlarge
Figure 9: The empty cover.

click to enlarge
Figure 10:  Two small flaps are to hold the Kindle in place.

We also found that the white casing of the Kindle was a slight distraction when reading. Perhaps white was chosen to be more like the pages of a book, but we felt that a black case would make the screen stand out a little better.