Gadget: The Amazon Kindle, Now With AT&T

Next up in my Christmas Gadget Reviews: The Amazon Kindle - the new version.

PREVIOUS GADGET BLOGS: Gadget: The Motorola Droid w/ AccuWeather.com

COMING SOON: Ambient Weather Forecaster devices, and the Davis Vantage Vue electronic weather station.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this blog are mine and not necessarily those of AccuWeather, Inc or AccuWeather.com. AccuWeather may be developing services for the Kindle or similar devices.

This book/magazine/blog e-reader has a lot of hype though it also has some serious competition with the Barnes & Noble Nook, which I have not reviewed. Unofficially, I believe AccuWeather.com is working on something for the Kindle; stay tuned.

I reviewed the original Kindle for Christmas 2007 and let me say: It has come a long way since then. It's much slimmer, as light as an actual book, and has much easier-to-use buttons (that aren't in your way). My wife, who's the book reader in our household, reports that it's pleasant to use for reading.

But like the iPhone, Amazon is potentially damaging the product by now selling them with AT&T's poor network - I was only online for a couple of hours with the Kindle before I got "Unknown Error" attempting to access the wireless for the rest of the night, and overall response to the wireless network was much slower than the original Kindle. This is something that won't be beat by the nook, which also uses AT&T, though it sports Wi-Fi as well for trouble-free downloads at your home or B&N store.

Another problem that the New Kindle continues to have, as much or more than its predecessor, is freeze-ups. During testing I had to force-reboot the device at least 5 times (by holding down the power button) when it froze up during reading, downloading, updating, or powering up.