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The Kindle 2 started shipping in earnest yesterday, and many who’ve been keeping abreast of the e-book reader may be wondering what exactly makes it differ from its predecessor besides it’s looks. Instead of giving it a formal gadget review, we decided to do a side-by-side feature comparison between the Kindle and the Kindle 2 to help you understand better how the device has improved over the past year.
So for the curious, here briefly is a rundown of the most important changes and new features in the Kindle 2:
Obvious Stuff: The Cosmetics
It’s thin. Real thin. The original Kindle was a little less than an inch (0.7″) at its thickest point and it tapered on one side. The Kindle 2 is about a third of an inch (0.36″) all the way across, about the thickness of a magazine. The back now has a stainless steel finish, removing the potential battery cover mishaps a few users were experiencing. The interface is much cleaner, replacing the scroll wheel and animated side cursor with mirrored side buttons and a simple five-way rocker switch. A lot of functions are consolidated to this rocker switch, letting you pull up, navigate, and select items in popup menus.
The 6″-diagonal screen is the same size but supports more shades of grey–16 shades versus the original Kindle’s 4–making graphics easier on the eyes and making image-heavy content like blogs much more pleasant to read.
Faster Pages
The Kindle 2 just plain runs faster, with 20% faster page turns. It’s one of those statistics that doesn’t necessarily stand out on paper; but having both Kindles side-by-side, believe me it makes a difference.
Longer Battery
The battery lasts about 25% longer in the new Kindle. That means four days of reading with the wireless turned on, and up to two weeks with the wireless antenna turned off.
Text-to-Speech
Now the Kindle will even read your books to you. The text-to-speech function features a male and female voice that will recite book content through the onboard speaker or connected headphones. The text-to-speech works surprisingly well, though I personally found the male voice to be a little less “robotic”.
No Memory Card Slot
You can play MP3s on the Kindle 2, but keep the 1.4 GB capacity in mind because the SD card slot has been removed in this version. Amazon backs up all your content purchases, though, so you can make room where you need to.
Web Browsing
Amazon’s “Whispernet” 3G network will now let you peruse web pages in addition to downloading books. Wikipedia, Dictionary.com, and more are browsable right on the Kindle with no data plan or bills. I’m not going to lie–the web functionality’s pretty limited and it’s never going to replace a dedicated web browsing device, but it’s great if you want to look up a word in a book you’re reading, looking for a quick recipe, or want more background on the topic at hand.
Want to know more? Learn more about the Kindle 2 on Amazon.com.
Tags: amazon, amazon kindle 2, kindle, kindle 2
January 18th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
gday there, simply wanted to mention thanks for this post, it let me become aware of something I hadn’t given a lot of thought to it beforehand.
December 13th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
I have been looking at the Kindle online for about six months. I would come very close to making the purchase, but I’d realize it didn’t make economic sense: I didn’t read enough books to justify the upfront investment; I couldn’t share books with friends; I would be giving up library borrowing; and I’m not even sure I own the books I purchase for the Kindle (much hoopla about this, I know). It didn’t make good economic sense to buy a Kindle. Now that I own one, I still agree with that conclusion - but I give the Kindle five stars. Why? Because the Kindle isn’t about saving money; it’s about enjoyable reading. And the Kindle is a glorious success at this. I can’t explain how nice it is to read without turning pages and fussing with bindings. If I want to hold a cup of coffee (or a glass of scotch) in one hand and the Kindle in the other, it’s no problem at all. I can access the relevant control (”Next Page”) without any fuss. If I want to lay the kindle flat on my desk and not touch it but to turn the pages, fine; no problem. For me, this is the main advantage of the Kindle. It sounds a bit ridiculous to complain of books being cumbersome, but you’ll understand after finishing your first Kindle edition book. That said, being able to wirelessly download books is a wonderful, if sometimes unwittingly expensive, feature. I love waking to the New York Times every morning and having various magazines delivered throughout the week for mere dollars a month. Granted, I expect to spend more on actual reading material, but I also expect to read more, which more than compensates for a slight fiscal uptick.
So, my recommendation is this; buy the Kindle, planning wholeheartedly to return it if you’re not completely taken by it. It doesn’t make a lot of economic sense, so you need to love it when it arrives. If you don’t, it’s not the device for you.