Perhaps I’m Immature

Behind all the childlike hysteria and hyperbole about the iPhone, the Kindle from Amazon quietly gets on with being maturely brilliant.

It’s best known as a book reader of course and, despite my early doubts that such a device would sell – a physical book being an almost perfectly developed product, it’s been a huge success.

It does its main job of being a way of getting, storing and reading a book brilliantly and it’s everything an iPhone isn’t – it appeals to non-techies, its battery lasts literally weeks, it’s got a black and white screen, it can be read in bright sunshine and the simplest one costs just £70.

But did you know that it’s also got WiFi and a (rubbish) web browser and that you can get your email with it?

And the greatest secret of all – the £150 version contains a free 3G card which you can use anywhere in the world to do all those things for free over any 3G mobile network.

Now, for the traveller, that IS grown up useful.

I still don’t want one. Perhaps I’m immature – I do have an iPhone though.