I got a Kindle Touch for my birthday last year, although it didn’t arrive until around Thanksgiving. It has been something of a disappointment. My one child got a Barnes & Noble Nook about the same time, and it is by far the better product. (I’m not alone in that assessment.) (While I’m sure about the Nook, I’m not sure about Barnes & Noble. I chose the Amazon product to access the Amazon market. If ebook readers used a common industry-wide format, the Nook would be a no-brainer.)

Anyway, the Kindle Touch is a few grams too heavy to be comfortable, and the user interface is … well, there’s no way to sugarcoat this: it stinks. You never know where to press because sometimes you press in the invisible right-hand zone to move forward. Sometimes you “flick” things up from the bottom. To go forward you tap the right side. To go backward you flick the left. And so on.

But I see there is a new firmware update for the Touch. I don’t know if it’s any good, but it can hardly be any worse. I’m installing it as I type this. I’ll let you know how it works out.