I’ve been using a Kindle now for around a month. I haven’t bought too many books as yet; the Dr Who Guidebook, a Jeremy Clarkson (Top Gear) compilation, a Stephen Hawking tome and one by a supporter of Richard Dawkins whose name escapes me at the moment.

As a kid, I used to read a lot, voraciously in fact and I still subscribe to the fact that a large part of one’s education, vocabulary and memory abilities can be attributed to reading while younger. These days I read a lot less for personal amusement, mainly being 30 minutes at night before mattress-fall to wind me down at the end of the day. I might even break all the suggested rules and have a night cap of a Black Douglas and ice or a port.

I have shown the Kindle to many people and to date, the enthusiasm has been universal. Quite a few have even bought one or intend to for Christmas. At a price of $250+ something as I recall, and an average of $9-$11 for a book (that retails for upwards of $19 for the ‘real’ paperback), you cannot really go wrong.

It is in this light I read of interest of all the hype surrounding the supposed upcoming Apple tablet then. Many are touting a $1000 price tag and an OLED screen. One assumes colour then? Now I don’t know how many Kindles Amazon has sold, but more than I few I reckon. I think Apple may have dropped the ball on this one.

You don’t need colour to read paperbacks (as against coffee table books and glossy magazines say) and Amazon has a good two year march on Apple in the content and infrastructure stakes. And at a grand, you’d have to be a true believer of Apple. Lose a $250 Kindle and have it nicked with your backpack and while it would be a PITA, losing a thousand dollar tablet would be a tad more than that.

I could be wrong; maybe the Apple faithful will buy such a beast. But what an overkill that would be in the real world. Well I think so anyway.