I had a very first-gen Kindle and in many ways it was still ahead of everything on the market. Today I'd probably find the screen refresh too long, but the jogwheel was the best e-reader "pointer input" method by far.

A friend who got a recent Kindle was not able to use it at all without linking it to his Amazon account. He could sideload books only after that. I'm also not sure how firmware updates work without connectivity.