gdgt

It must be because it's their own product and good service is what gives a company a leading edge these days. I'm not so sure they'd to the same for a 3rd party product that they would carry because of the cost of returning it to its originator... just speculating.

On the contrary, basic physic principals point to cracking. I've been putting purchasing a Kindle on the back burner because of doubts about the design integrity of the Kindle. Some reasons are the issues which I see are a reality in the above comments.

From a structural standpoint, because of the proportions of the design being very thin and planar, there would be a lot of potential for deflection under any impact specifically to the corners at the face or back. Unless Amazon used highly rigid materials in these areas, cracking will be an issue.

Another way to possibly negate the deflection issues are proper isolation techniques which would allow for the screen to "float" within the given deflected areas. My suspicion is that Amazon took this route and utilized inferior materials which deflect. I'm only guessing this by looking at the real estate designated to the bezel to screen ratio. A smaller screen with larger bezel might also be a limitation due to manufacturing cost since screen size is a major determining factor in product development.

All in all I do very much like the idea of E-book readers. I recently bought "Googled" for $10 more dollars than the E-book price of $9.99. A couple more purchases like that and a Kindle, with their amazing service, starts to make more sense.