Do I want a kindle?

For Christmas, my step mom Kathy got a kindle fire from my Dad. She was really excited to have it replace her original kindle, which has a display screen only in black & white. My first question was why was the kindle (and other reading devices like the nook) so outdated looking in a time where it definitely could have been. The technology existed in 2007 to make it have a color screen, internet capibility, and games. When my mom asked me if I wanted a kindle for christmas, I said no because I knew a more advanced version would come out soon. Its all really an intelligent marketing ploy. The android designers knew they could milk more money out of the kindle name, so they purposely left out features. People fell for it. Sales for the first kindle were huge, and it seemed like nobody asked why it was so technologically behind.
There are four generations to the kindle:

The first generation is this blocky monster. It was incapable of holding illustrated books or cover artwork.
It did not have any internet capability but had 250 MB of memory. At a price of $399, the first generation of the amazon kindle sold out in around five hours in the United States.

My Dad has this, the second generation kindle. I've done a lot of reading on it so I don't really think I should criticize it. Its fun to read on because you can click on certain words you don't know and it will give you a dictionary definition. It helped me get about half-way through Madame Bovary my freshman year, but I just got WAAAAY too bored and had to stop. Seriously, I honestly despise that book. At the same time I would read on this, I had an iPod with wifi capability and games, so it made me question why the kindle didn't come with more.

This is the third generation of the kindle. It has a larger screen, less awkward keyboard, and you can get it in graphite. That's really all. And it made amazon a lot of money without them really changing much.

The kindle fire came out in the fall of 2011 and revolutionized the e-reader series. It is very similar to the iPad,   and has all the same capabilities of it. The negative aspect of having such a bright screen is that reading time is reduced because it shortens the battery life. I think reading on the kindle is fun, it makes me think I'm just reading an article on the internet, which many in my generation are accustomed to and often feel awkward with books. It makes me feel guilty though, because as e-readers become more popular, bookstores have been greatly effected. A notable example of this is Borders, a book chain that had been open with many locations across the united states for over 40 years.