The massive success of Amazon’s Kindle electronic reader caught just about everyone by surprise. The combination of an advanced e-ink display, insanely long battery life, and easy-to-use available-anywhere wireless content delivery ensured that the Kindle made its way to the hearts of many devout readers. Today, Amazon launched the Kindle 2.
The Kindle 2 comes with a number of improvements over its predecessor. The screen has seen the most work, with drawing speed being improved by 20%, allowing Amazon to get rid of the tiny LCD strip from the first Kindle. The e-ink display can now display more shades of gray as well, and it comes with more fonts for better readability.
The click wheel has been replaced by a five-way nub controller, which should make navigation easier. The device is also a lot thinner; it’s actually thinner than a pencil, and weights less too, making it easier to carry around with you. Battery life has also been improved, allowing the Kindle 2 to be without juice for two weeks.
The page flip buttons are now smaller, and pivot inwards, removing the annoyance of accidental page flips. THe keyboard has been completely revamped, but according to Ars, not necessarily for he better. It’s a full qwerty keyboard, but with some odd button locations. The biggest problem they noted, however, is that the keyboard lacks an offset; the keys are aligned vertically, which made typing annoying, according to Ars. Ars further concludes:
Overall, I have to say that the Kindle 2 is a far superior device to the first iteration, and really shows an attention to detail that, based on the earlier device, it wasn’t clear that Amazon had in it. More significantly, perhaps, is the fact that the company has clearly made sensible fixes to many of the problems, which demonstrates a clear commitment to listening to its customers. The changes give me hope that, when the hardware’s ready, the remaining issues (primarily the keyboard and the small screen) will be fixed. It makes me anxious to see what’s in store for Kindle 3.
The Kindle 2 will be available in the US February 24, for USD 359. No word yet on an international launch.
Engadget has some videos and pictures heree: http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/09/kindle-2-first-hands-on/
If you are into DRM that is.
I’m really not an Apple fan, but I really want a eBook iPod event. Meaning: A cheap device that will show all my PDFs. 800×600 just isn’t good enough.
Maybe the cheap OLPC-like displays from PixelQI make something like that possible.
I am really not interested in paying Amazon for everything I read.
I already have the PDFs .. just give me a cheap epaper-like reader!
(And please don’t mention reading on Phone/Netbooks .. it just doesn’t compare. Just try ePaper yourself.)
What you (and I) are waiting for is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v226DYqlbHQ
Shame it won’t be available until 2010 though.
other than the ungodly massive boarders, thats pretty sweet. mostly what I want
Yeah the borders are a little large. I wouldn’t call them ugly though, at least noway near kindle ugly! They kind of make sense too – stuff printed on paper usually has quite large borders so there’s not much point wasting display on the edges.
That looks interesting, but the screen looks like it has some serious problems. There are streaks and other artifacts all over it; especially when changing pages.
Presumably why it’s been delayed to 2010.
the Kindle supports multiple formats.. such as “PDF”.
oh wow, I take back what I said. apparently the conversion process has to go through Amazon and is super slow. that is retarded.
Well, you can always download mobipockets free tools and convert your PDF to PRC and read that in the Kindle. That’s how I read books on my BlackBerry (only usefull 3rd party BB app, imho).
Edited 2009-02-10 16:23 UTC
Why use the word retarded? It’s so demeaning.
I have the first gen Kindle and it is a great. However, I think they should have kept the scroll wheel myself it is easier to get to the line you want to check a definition for a word in the dictionary. Hopefully, they will keep updating the firmware in the old one because the cost to upgrade is to high for me. I just wish college textbooks would be on the Kindle and it would save me the hassle of carrying a book bag.
I see in the video of the new five-way nub and it uses the e-ink screen which probably waste the battery more than the scroll wheel thingy.
I just don’t see the point. From the pictures of the 1st gen and this one, the screen looks horrible, eInk or not, it looks like a very old lcd screen from way back when!
as a product I just don’t get it. The ebooks they sell are just as expensive (or more so) than real hard copies that I can take anywhere, don’t need batteries and I can lend to friends.
The newspapers: I can get them on my ipod, my phone, my netbook, my laptop or my desktop – But quite frankly, newspapers aren’t something I read!
Sure I can have 100s of books on one device, but really, how often you NEED to have 100s of books to hand?
also and perhaps crucially.. it’s damned expensive – I can buy a LOT of (more versatile) books for that price.
I got excited when I heard about the text-to-speech capabilities. Since it has a headphone jack, I could export books to mp3 and listen to them in my car while I drive to/from work, at the gym, or whatever.
Then I looked on the Kindle store for about 8 books I was interested in, and none of them were available on the Kindle. Reminds me of the old days of music download services – good idea, but needs more content. And the DRM doesn’t help either. And like you said, getting college textbooks on this thing seems like a no-brainer, assuming they can pull it off.
Does the device itself have text-to-speech capabilities, or is this something you’d do on the PC before hand with text files? Can you do tts with the .azw files you download from Amazon? I must say if the device itself has tts my interest in it just spiked, otherwise… well, I can do the text file to mp3 stuff with my iPod Nano.
The device itself has text-to-speech built in.
Now, that’s just awesome. I’ve been waiting quite a while for something like this. I’ll definitely have to check it out.
Just check the Kindle store:
http://www.amazon.com/kindle-store-ebooks-magazines-blogs-newspaper…
Search for some books you’re interested in reading, and see if they have ‘Kindle editions’.
Already did, and they have most of what I’m interested in, and are adding more.
You are mostly missing the point.
1. Hard copy books:
– are not ecological (you could argue the same about ebooks, but I doubt that killing lots of trees is the same as mass producing electronics)
– have to be stored somewhere
– degrade, get dusty (old books are downright unhealthy if not perfectly stored)
– are not free (you can get loads of great free books from gutenberg.org for example)
– many times their availability is limited (don’t think only about English
)
– are more difficult to carry, especially when they are larger
– can’t be marked non-destructively
2. Eink devices, albeit first generation, solve most of those problems.
Kindle seems nice, I own a Sony Reader, and it’s ok, not perfect, but definitely nice
Try recycling old electronics versus old books. Printed books are likely to have a longer usable life than ebook readers.
The text between the brackets was for nitpickers. And of course, one came along.
My point is that all those complaints are similar in concept to newspapers versus websites, magazines versus websites, sewing machines versus manual sewing. If ebook technology is promoted, hard copy books will go the way of the vinyl record: useful only for enthusiasts.
Avid reader and current ebook owner writing.
And we all know there is no pollution resulting from electronic manufacturing.
Read my comment between the brackets. And you don’t really want to go into this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Paper
“Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst identified International Paper as the 27th-largest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States, releasing more than 35 million pounds of toxic compounds into the air annually.”
Plus, in less developed countries the policies regarding forest re-planting are relatively weak, so you have 2 evils: pollution by production and pollution by destruction
Plus pollution from electronic manufacturing plants who also enjoy the laxer regulations with regards to pollution and labor. Where’d you think all the chemicals that are used go?
ok to come back:
arguably it IS more ecological to use trees, as trees are heavily managed in woodlands and they have to replant when they harvest. – also there are way way less chemicals involved in paper production – it’s biodegradable, way easier to recycle
ok this is a valid point
data also degrade – but arguably at a much faster rate – eg. the british library used to use laserdiscs for data storage but now can’t find any players to read them.
Also – just try re-reading your floppy discs or even your 5-10 years old CDROMS – bet there is a good proportion of them that you can’t read.
Books on the other hand, (with care) will easily last for 200-300+ years
no, but I can go into library or pub (in the UK) and read or borrow books for free or my friends can give me their copy when they’re done with it.
I don’t understand, can you clarify this?
point taken and valid – also I’d add that it’s way easier to search for words electronically than manually.
When your sony reader reaches the end of its life in, say 2-3 years (i’m guessing this) what will happen to the ebooks you’ve got stored on it?
You’re looking at it from a British/Western point of view. In less developed countries/developing countries, I can hardly find places to borrow books anymore – they have all gone bankrupt after the moment when the state cut their funding. Selling books is not very popular (go figure
). At least with ebooks I can have access to lots of free electronic books, which I can read as easily as an ordinary book (carrying a laptop is much more annoying, plus the screen is not as well suited to reading *books*).
”
– many times their availability is limited (don’t think only about English
)
I don’t understand, can you clarify this?
”
Amazon sells mostly English books. Or other International circulation language books. If I want Romanian books, sometimes I can’t even pirate them, because I certainly can’t find where to buy them. I don’t mean translated copies of Harry Potter, but Romanian classics or international quality literature that isn’t very popular. Therefore, because digital copies are more readily accessible, I can just get a copy and put it on the ebook. I know it’s supposed to be piracy, but when I can’t get a legal copy… what should I do?
”
2. Eink devices, albeit first generation, solve most of those problems.
Kindle seems nice, I own a Sony Reader, and it’s ok, not perfect, but definitely nice.
When your sony reader reaches the end of its life in, say 2-3 years (i’m guessing this) what will happen to the ebooks you’ve got stored on it?
”
I’ll copy them to my computer? It has a data cable, you know?
Edited 2009-02-10 14:00 UTC
In less developed countries people sure can’t afford to spend $350 on a ebook reader and amazon’s prices on ebooks.
Really. I’d say it’s about normally popular around here (Manila). Buying a book sure beats paying $350 for a reader alone.
The Sony Reader was around $250, and you missed my paragraph related to free books found on the internet?
Anyway, you can look at current ebook readers like at the first generation of laptop: heavy, expensive, underpowered. In 5 years if the interest/market is there, we should see the netbook equivalent.
I bought one because I figured out that it will buy itself back in ~1 year.
Edited 2009-02-10 15:07 UTC
$250 is almost the entire monthly salary for, for example, a tech support engineer here. I’d wager most people would rather buy a netbook than a dedicated ebook reader when spending that much.
just a note… most books made in the last decade, unless from a really good source (easton press, etc) will hardly last 2-300 years, even with care
They fall apart. It sucks 
I’ve had to buy new copies of some of my most read books because the bindings have just fallen apart on my older copies. It is pathetic, nothing is made to last anymore…
Paper’s not ecological, but the lead and other heavy metals of electronics are ecological?
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/02/showdown-kindle.html
I don’t know which one I’d rather have
What data are you basing this on? From what I understand Amazon has not released numbers for Kindle. True? I did see some analyst guesses in the news, but no confirmation of those guesses.
*smack*
don’t question the hype!
It looks fantastic (I’d love to have one) but at the moment it’s up there as a gadget for upscale gadget-lovers with deep pockets. One reason is that the average person buys only a very small number of books a year. So at present the Kindle and othe e-books are only a value proposition if you read many books a month and/or are very wealthy.
Divide the Kindle’s price by four or five and the price of its e-books by at least two and you’d be getting nearer to something that might sell in the mass-market. That’s because the Kindle sounds ideal as an addition to rather than a replacement for traditional printed books. Great for holidays, travelling or hanging around when you don’t want to lug the weight and bulk of real books. Take mobile phones: people might buy a cheapo second one to take on holidays and trips but they don’t buy an expensive second one that’s as capable as their main phone.
Further afield, a guess is that the Kindle’s main market may be as a give-away or subsidized item, from the big media combines. The hook will be delivering a Kindle-ised newspaper to your machine each morning via a wifi hotspot, mobile broadband or simply via your wireless router at home.
You can get a used PalmOS PDA on eBay for ~$50-75 bucks that has a relatively high resolution screen (like a Sony Clie with a 320×320 color or greyscale screen), pretty good battery life, and can read most popular text formats.
That is what I do. I don’t see the point in buying a specific device like a Kindle when there are tons of perfectly usable older devices that will serve the purpose just fine.
heck, before I broke it, my Handera 330 was *the* best ebook reader ever. Easy to hold, 240×320 greyscale touchscreen display, handwriting recognition that works well, could use SD and CF cards, could use normal AAAs OR a Lithium battery pack, and I had battery times measured in weeks with constant use, and it had an indiglo blue backlight that was extremely easy on the eyes.
My good man, you need to join the consumption society. How else will we, as a race, move forward? If you use your head and buy old stuff you actually need you are letting the commies…errr…terrorists win.
Because the specific devices do a better job at that one purpose than a general purpose device.
I used to read books on my palmOS device and thought it worked fine. Then I saw the Sony ebook reader and realized how much better reading books on a dedicated reader actually could be. After that my palm didn’t seem that great any more.
yeah, those 5ms refresh times rock on the sony reader.
I’ve tried using eink readers, the delays just annoy the crap out of me.
personal preference, I guess.
Do you want to read or watch movies?
I can’t read a page faster than 5ms. But that’s just me…
actually, the delay is longer than that… I know you can’t flip pages very quickly in a real book but there is just something annoying about the delay, for me, on an eink display. Probably because I’m not doing anything in the intervening time besides staring at the display. With a book, at least, you have the act of physically moving the page.
Nothing for Canada, no ebook, no Kindle.
What’s wrong with Amazon or Canada? How come I can buy books from Amazon.COM in Canada, but I can’t touch ebook?
One acryonym: CDMA.
The Sprint network that powers the Kindle network is CDMA. In other words, suck-tastic, and with limited regional support.
I do all my book reading using Wattpad on my Nokia E71 anyway…so I figure a kindle will be a lot better than that. And perhaps not make me go blind as quickly.
Since the conversation has gone towards “Kindles are good for these reasons/books are good for these reasons/I’ll just read on my other, cheaper handheld device,” I thought I’d put in my two bits… bytes… more like a couple of kilobytes… but whatever, I’m being overly nerdy in saying that.
For me personally, I’d rather have a physical book to open and read. I’m an avid reader– I love it– perhaps this is why. Logically, the Kindle makes sense and I wouldn’t mind having one, but even there I wouldn’t waste $250 or $300 or however much they generally cost on a device dedicated just to reading books… and then I have to buy the books, too. I can’t “rip” my existing paper books to the Kindle like I can with my CDs to my computer. If I’m really in need of reading something on the go, I either bring a book with me or read something online (blogs, news, whatever) or downloaded from Google Book Search on my $300 netbook or my $150 (used) PPC– which both can also do a ton more than just read, so the price is more justified in my mind. I dunno. Reading is a treasure for me, and reading on a Kindle or a netbook or some handheld device isn’t very enjoyable. The traditional way is the way to do it, in my opinion.
patent infringement?
http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/11/know-your-rights-does-the-kindle…