Although I'm on this trip for WWDC, I can't help note a few things about traveling with my Kindle 2.
Prior to this trip, my Kindle never had connected to the Whispernet, Sprint's EVDO network that serves Kindle contents from Amazon. One unexpected consequence is that my Kindle 2 was never able to set date time (there is no manual settings for that), plus I could never de-register and re-register the device to another account.
Taking it "back home" was an interesting experience. Although we live in an age of roaming networks, telecoms exploit this gap and charge you dearly if you dare to make a call—or worse, if you are so desperate to pay hundreds of dollars for a few MBs of data.
But not Kindle. It was my first device that connected when I hopped on the BART from SFO. It gave me a warm feeling—as if I was instantly "connected" to the local vibes, with free web browsing (weather, news, wikipedia for travel tips, and Twitter [!]) and newspaper deliveries.
So I can't agree more that Kindle is actually a disguised this device.
Now, I say all the good things about Kindle because I travel to the US this time. It's interesting how after two decades of the SIM model, some devices start to revive the burnt-in model. So the next question is when such device can roam when outside its mothership country.
So my Kindle has come "home", and now I finally know how good an always-connected e-book reader is.