I had an iPod touch for a week to try it out, and it did a great job filling in the RSS/leisure web surfing niche I tend to frequent. One problem: It's too danged small. That's great when you want portable, but not so great when you want to read your newspaper/magazine/etc jive online.

Amazon's Kindle runs the exact opposite line. It will never succeed as more than a niche device as long as it tries so hard to emulate a book. I'm reminded of the ill-fated Sega Game Gear ad where the kid knocks himself (someone else?) in the head with a squirrel so hard he can see his Game Boy in color. Well, here it really matters. I don't want to see my eMagazines in 128 greys. I don't care how it reads outside. If I'm stuck outside, I'll read, well, a printed book. I don't want to drive my content through Amazon; I read more than what I buy at the bookstore these days. I want to choose. I want rss, email, and web pages of my choice. I don't go to Barnes and Noble to read The Sports Bog.

What I want is the flexibility of the iPod touch's platform with a size somewhere between the touch and a notepad-laptop -- in other words, I want a Kindle-sized iPod. If I need to be mobile, I'll grab something like the current touch, but when I'm sitting at home, resting, I need something larger. Larger, in color, and able to surf the web.

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