How would you change Amazon’s Kindle?

February 01st, 2008 | Category: Gadget Corner

Truth be told, only a portion of the world was totally shocked when FCC documentation gave us all reason to believe that Amazon was indeed diving head first into the hardware biz, but even now, it still seems a touch awkward to see a label most commonly spotted on corrugated boxes plastered on an e-book reader. Nevertheless, Bezos’ baby did indeed take on the aforementioned sector, though it took an outlandishly enlarged date to go from FCC-approved to bookworm-ready. After missing a gazillion (give or take a few) proposed due dates, the cleverly-named (and questionably designed) Kindle finally made itself available on — gasp! — Amazon.com some 14 months after its original coming out party.

As with most highly-anticipated devices, that specific one was additionally met with its fair share of critics and proponents, but judging by the initial difficulty it had remaining in stock, it seemed well on its way to e-reader stardom.

Granted, we’ve no clairvoyant on staff, but we’re guessing a few of those orders went to a few of you all. Assuming that’s the case, why not give ole Jeff and company something to think about for Kindle v2.0? Yeah, we know you’ve been enjoying those unannounced easter eggs and whatnot, but now that you’ve had ample duration to flip through a few paperless pages and really get a read (ahem) on that thing, what alterations would you prepare going forward? How’s about a color screen, for starters? possibly a little more responsiveness? A little less ‘80, a little more ‘08 in the design? Or, say, native Engadget support in the RSS reader? We’re only partially kidding on that last one, but feel free to agree and tack on a dozen more worthwhile changes in comments below.

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