Amazon Kindle 2 Review
The Kindle 2
is thinner--it measures a svelte 0.36 inch at its thickest point--and weighs 10.2 ounces. For the record, it's not the thinnest mainstream e-book reader. Like some other electronic paper products, the Kindle 2 uses "e-ink" technology, which serves to make the letters and words on the screen look more printlike in their appearance. A lot of people, when they first see the screen, are genuinely impressed.
There's been a lot of anticipation about what Amazon would do for an encore to its much-hyped e-book reader, the Kindle, and now that it's finally here we can say that the Kindle 2 is about what we expected it to be. Whether you're a fan of the keyboard or not, it's worth noting that the Kindle 2 is actually slightly longer than the original, measuring 8 inches from top to bottom.
As with most of these types of digital readers, there's no backligh
t (Amazon says it causes eyestrain), so you need some sort of light source to read in the dark. According to the specs, the screen itself is a 6-inch (diagonal) electronic-paper display, with a 600x800 pixel resolution at 167 ppi.
Aside from making wireless book purchases in the Kindle Store, you can have periodical subscriptions and blogs automatically delivered to your device over the air. At the time of this writing, 31 Kindle newspapers are available for download, including 7 international papers. Unfortunately, subscriptions are somewhat overpriced. For example, a monthly subscription to The New York Times is $13.99. It should really be less than $10, because the fact is you can access a lot of the same articles for free on your cell phone or the Kindle 2 itself--and the content can be fresher (there's only one morning-Kindle edition of The New York Times). But pricing complaints aside, having the newspaper delivered to your Kindle each morning is a nice option for commuters--and you don't have to worry about getting any ink on your hands.
What else is new? Well, Amazon has upgraded the processor in this model, so the screen refreshes about 20 percent faster between page turns. All and all, the thing just feels zippier, but it's important to note that while you'd think that a monochrome system would be lightning fast at this point, the Kindle 2 still exhibits some slight lag.
While there's still a pronounced robotic element to it--you can switch between male and female digitized voices--it sounded better than we expected. In short, don't expect to get a true audiobook experience along the lines of what Audible offers (and yes, the Kindle 2, like the original, does support audiobook downloads from Amazon's Audible subsidiary), but it's usable.
Amazon has upped the amount of onboard memory to 2GB (from 256MB), so you can store up to 1,500 books or assorted newspaper and blog subscriptions, as well as JPEG images. But unfortunately, taking a cue from Apple, it left out an expansion slot for additional memory. Using that same Micro-USB port, you can transfer files to the spare memory on your Kindle 2 (it shows up as a standard USB storage drive when connected to a computer). Like the earlier model, this one can play back MP3 and AAC files (as well as Audible audio book files), but 2GB is pretty skimpy when you start getting into multiple albums with high bit rates--so think in terms of storing only your favorite songs or albums and not your entire music library.
Amazon has made some nice tweaks to the interface and has made it easier to access the embedded dictionary to look up words, but it's far from a total revamp. You're still left with moments when you're not sure whether you should go forward or backward, or which button you should hit to get to where you want to go. In other words, it's not entirely intuitive. Kindle newbies will have to play around with the device for a day or two to really get the hang of it (that's pretty good, all things considered)
But for now, the price of admission to Amazon's electronic book world is what it is, and when you combine the new design and built-in wireless connection with enhanced syncing features for multiple Kindles, and the impressive integration with Amazon's online Kindle Store, the Kindle 2 is simply the best e-book reader out there--for people who live in the U.S. anyway. Sorry for that caveat, but for the rest of the world, which can't tap into Sprint's network, it's a harder call, and the door remains wide open to other manufacturers.
is thinner--it measures a svelte 0.36 inch at its thickest point--and weighs 10.2 ounces. For the record, it's not the thinnest mainstream e-book reader. Like some other electronic paper products, the Kindle 2 uses "e-ink" technology, which serves to make the letters and words on the screen look more printlike in their appearance. A lot of people, when they first see the screen, are genuinely impressed.There's been a lot of anticipation about what Amazon would do for an encore to its much-hyped e-book reader, the Kindle, and now that it's finally here we can say that the Kindle 2 is about what we expected it to be. Whether you're a fan of the keyboard or not, it's worth noting that the Kindle 2 is actually slightly longer than the original, measuring 8 inches from top to bottom.
As with most of these types of digital readers, there's no backligh
t (Amazon says it causes eyestrain), so you need some sort of light source to read in the dark. According to the specs, the screen itself is a 6-inch (diagonal) electronic-paper display, with a 600x800 pixel resolution at 167 ppi.Aside from making wireless book purchases in the Kindle Store, you can have periodical subscriptions and blogs automatically delivered to your device over the air. At the time of this writing, 31 Kindle newspapers are available for download, including 7 international papers. Unfortunately, subscriptions are somewhat overpriced. For example, a monthly subscription to The New York Times is $13.99. It should really be less than $10, because the fact is you can access a lot of the same articles for free on your cell phone or the Kindle 2 itself--and the content can be fresher (there's only one morning-Kindle edition of The New York Times). But pricing complaints aside, having the newspaper delivered to your Kindle each morning is a nice option for commuters--and you don't have to worry about getting any ink on your hands.
What else is new? Well, Amazon has upgraded the processor in this model, so the screen refreshes about 20 percent faster between page turns. All and all, the thing just feels zippier, but it's important to note that while you'd think that a monochrome system would be lightning fast at this point, the Kindle 2 still exhibits some slight lag.
While there's still a pronounced robotic element to it--you can switch between male and female digitized voices--it sounded better than we expected. In short, don't expect to get a true audiobook experience along the lines of what Audible offers (and yes, the Kindle 2, like the original, does support audiobook downloads from Amazon's Audible subsidiary), but it's usable.
Amazon has upped the amount of onboard memory to 2GB (from 256MB), so you can store up to 1,500 books or assorted newspaper and blog subscriptions, as well as JPEG images. But unfortunately, taking a cue from Apple, it left out an expansion slot for additional memory. Using that same Micro-USB port, you can transfer files to the spare memory on your Kindle 2 (it shows up as a standard USB storage drive when connected to a computer). Like the earlier model, this one can play back MP3 and AAC files (as well as Audible audio book files), but 2GB is pretty skimpy when you start getting into multiple albums with high bit rates--so think in terms of storing only your favorite songs or albums and not your entire music library.
Amazon has made some nice tweaks to the interface and has made it easier to access the embedded dictionary to look up words, but it's far from a total revamp. You're still left with moments when you're not sure whether you should go forward or backward, or which button you should hit to get to where you want to go. In other words, it's not entirely intuitive. Kindle newbies will have to play around with the device for a day or two to really get the hang of it (that's pretty good, all things considered)
But for now, the price of admission to Amazon's electronic book world is what it is, and when you combine the new design and built-in wireless connection with enhanced syncing features for multiple Kindles, and the impressive integration with Amazon's online Kindle Store, the Kindle 2 is simply the best e-book reader out there--for people who live in the U.S. anyway. Sorry for that caveat, but for the rest of the world, which can't tap into Sprint's network, it's a harder call, and the door remains wide open to other manufacturers.
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