Amazon’s Kindle e-book viewer has been slammed by students at Princeton, the prestigious North American university.

Fifty students were equipped with Kindles as part of the establishment’s exercise in paper conservation. Students were selected from a range of courses, and each Kindle was equipped with a semester’s worth of course material.

The trial began just two weeks ago, but students have already criticised the Kindle over its operating speed and usability.

“This technology is a poor excuse of an academic tool,” one student said, according to a report by website The Daily Princetonian. “It’s clunky, slow and a real pain to operate.”

Another student said Kindle is “a little difficult to adjust to” and expressed irritation over “the necessity to charge the Kindle”.

Kindle’s replacement of page numbers with location numbers also earned poor marks.

But not all Princetonians are Kindle haters. Harriet Flower, a Classics Professor at the university, described the gadget’s screen as “very easy on the eye”.

She also praised Kindle’s ability to bring large quantities of reading material to her fingertips.

Presumably one former Princeton student, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, would have been much more complimentary about Kindle, had he taken part in the exercise. ®