Rob Blackhurst

Take a Kindle out on the tube these days and you are liable to make friends. It could be the lateness of the hours I've been travelling, or perhaps I've been enveloped in a fug of festive bonhomie. But over the last month, wherever I've been, I've been accosted by strangers wanting to play with my Kindle. I haven't felt as popular since Father Christmas brought me that clunky yellow BMX Biker videogame in 1985.

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Anyway, with the empty shelves and waiting lists, the Kindle has been at the centre of a cabbage patch kid style craze this Christmas. So why the enthusiasm? It's worth remembering the conventional wisdom six months ago. The all-conquering I-pad, with its stunning graphics, touch technology, and multi-functionality looked like it would lay waste to everything in its path. When the grey, lo-fi Kindle was set alongside Apple's object of design perfection it seemed like comparing a Vauxhall Astra with an Audi. At best, the Kindle seemed like a modern version of the Betamax – one of technology's cul-de-sacs.

But this ugly sister has triumphed through a simple truth – the book (unlike the CD) is already a cheap, portable, user-friendly technology. For an E-reader to begin to compete with it, it must replicate the best things about a book - its lightness, its robustness, and the natural appearance of its text, its relative cheapness, and its paperback size.

In these austere times, the Kindle is around a quarter of the price of the I-pod and is light enough to be held in a single hand. Nobody wants to be carrying an I-phone around in places where it could get damaged, whereas the Kindle, with its graphite casing, feels like it could survive perfectly well on the beach with a few dabs of sun cream and grains of sand.

At times, it feels like something from fifteen years ago, with its raised buttons, but here again it's the unfussy technology that makes it so attractive. Since the Kindle is glorious incompatible with other operating systems, (against the networking spirit de nos jours) there are no distractions from incoming emails or web browsers. It doesn't encourage readers to tweet or facebook about their favourite passages when reading Wuthering Heights.

Best of all, its electronic ink makes it feel like reading a real book, rather than another part of the working day spent staring at a garish screen. And it's almost too easy to use - the immediate link through "one click ordering" to the Amazon kindle store allows you to buy a book in less than twenty seconds. The only faults I managed to find were that navigation through a book could be easier (page numbers have disappeared). And it can't be read in the dark. But, then again, neither can a Penguin classic.