A little smaller than I expected, it looks rather good and it is the size of a slightly large paperback except it’s really thin and it’s light.

The screen is amazingly good for reading text from books or magazines but is less good for illustrations and is poor when looking at web pages via the beta internet surfing.

I’ve bought it to trial The Independent and The Daily Mail the newspapers of choice here (don’t ask!).  If the Kindle proves a successful replacement for the printed page, it will save at least 50% of our paper bill. It will also save the wait for the delivery when it’s late, as it has been far too many times recently.

All the newspapers and blogs give two weeks free trial so more after that.

I guess the other question is how does it compare to an Apple iPad or even a new iPhone for reading books. This will require time to tell.  At present it feels strange going back to a Monochrome screen.  I’ll give it a couple of weeks and report back.

Very conveniently I’m going to attend the Milan Top Audio show soon, which will give the ideal opportunity to try the Kindle as a traveling book.  It’s lighter and smaller that the sort of books I usually buy to read while journeying so it may be a real winner.

It wasn’t a good solution either; just sorry for the delay we had some technical problems and please phone the HTC Europe Technical Support.

The background is that I used to use a HTC TyTN II a pretty good Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone, or it was a pretty good smartphone before the iPhone 3G, and had complained due to the paint chipping off the lower buttons.

After a brief conversation with Nadia, I was told that I could send my phone back to HTC for a fix but I would be charged.  On querying why, Nadia told me that TyTN II’s didn’t suffer from this type of fault so it must be how I looked after it.  I paraphrase as I can’t remember her exact words; she was very polite.

So after keeping me waiting for six months for the reply, the answer is, we would be delighted to bring your phone (pretty well looked after even if I say it myself) back up to scratch – sorry about the pun – but to expect a bill.

I’m not happy.  I’ve given up using the phone but it still irks me that it looks so battered.  On close inspection the plastics of the lower buttons is beautifully shiny so it’s not that surprising the paint is coming off.  Surely well primed plastics would be a bit rougher?

Anyway that’s another brand off my list.  Surely after a six month delay in replying someone somewhere should have had the gumption to say to the customer services staff to try o make up for the first mistake?  But no they add insult to injury and just assume it’s my fault.

And a suggestion for any HTC phone owner.  Be very careful how you handle and store the phone.  Seems even careful owners might get a tatty looking phone after a while.

If it doubt I’d suggest an iPhone.