Tempted by the increasingly low cost of the Kindle, we ordered one a few weeks ago. It arrived today. The screen is vastly improved, and it is smaller, lighter and faster than its predecessors.

A few people have asked “why not get an iPad”? Well, good question. The first answer is price: the Kindle costs $139, versus at least $499 for the iPad. The second is that I still don’t see a need for another computing device in my life beyond my laptop and phone. I work from home, so don’t have the commute time that an iPad might fit into. I write for a living, which means I rely on a keyboard for touch-typing. My tendency to forget to charge my gadgets means that I don’t need another gizmo that runs out of battery on a near-daily basis.

The iPad can do lots of things, but I just want the Kindle for one thing: reading. And I read quite a lot.

This should make it easier to get through some of the longer stuff, and read more books without gathering more stuff. Plus it’ll come in handy on our upcoming two-week rail trip around the US (which, coincidentally, gives me a chance to plug Anna’s fun Snailr project) and my subsequent visit to the UK.