Features:  

The idea of an ebook reader seems pretty simple; it’s hard to imagine a lot of ways to improve on the original Kindle when all you’re doing is reading books. And yet, Amazon found several ways to improve on the Kindle 2, some more effective than others.

One of the first things you’ll notice when using the Kindle 2 is the new navigation interface. Instead of the little scroll wheel from the original Kindle, the Kindle 2 uses a new 5-way control (basically a small joystick that can go up, down, left, right and can be pressed to select something on screen). This is a fairly big improvement over the scroll wheel because it allows you more freedom and control when selecting options on the screen or highlighting text.

But one of the features we’re most excited about will sound a little silly unless you’ve used the original Kindle. Amazon has redesigned the page turn buttons on the Kindle 2. Hallelujah! So why is this such an improvement? On the original Kindle, it was hard to find a place to hold the device because the buttons took up most of the sides, and they would turn the page at the slightest bump, leading to a lot of accidental page turns. The page turn buttons on the Kindle 2 are smaller (but still easy to reach) and slant inward when you press them. This may sound like an insignificant difference, but it’s light-years ahead of the first Kindle for usability. It makes the device easier to hold and you will never have to worry about accidental page turns unless to like to throw pointy objects at your Kindle 2 (in which case you have much bigger issues than accidental page turns).

The Kindle 2, of course, still enjoys the benefits of having an E-ink screen, although the Kindle 2 can show more detail than the original, thanks to the 16-level grayscale. While the biggest problem for many people is that the Kindle can’t display color, the 16-level grayscale has done wonders for images displayed on the screen, offering more detail and smoother grays.

There are several new features that have been added to the Kindle 2 that may seem like great benefits at first, but which in reality don’t improve the usability of the device much over the original Kindle. First of all, the Kindle 2 has seven times more memory and almost double the battery life of the original Kindle. You might be thinking “But that sounds great!” The fact is you probably didn’t need either of them that much unless you are an especially avid reader. The first Kindle could hold hundreds of books, more than you would need at any given time, so the ability to now hold 1,500 books isn’t a great improvement unless you absolutely insist on having every book you’ve ever read ready for recall at any moment. And the original Kindle could go an entire week without a recharge (more if you only used it for an hour or two each day) so being able to go two weeks isn’t really that important. Odds are that just about anyone could find time to charge their Kindle in a week’s time. I guess now you can go on that two week wilderness trek without fretting about losing your reading material half-way through.

One of the most interesting, and possibly useless, features included in the Kindle 2 is the new Read-to-Me ability. Basically this is a text-to-speech program that can read your books for you and synthesize the words into speech. At first glance this sounds like a great idea because it can turn any book into an audiobook, leaving you free to do other things while you listen. Unfortunately, the synthesized Read-to-Me voice isn’t particularly pleasant and is pretty hard to warm up to. It really doesn’t make for a relaxing reading experience. We actually would have preferred a more user-friendly MP3-playing program integrated into the Kindle 2 rather than text-to-speech capability. If you like audiobooks read by actual humans, you will be happy to learn that the Kindle 2 supports audiobooks downloaded from Audible.com.

The most useful feature of the Kindle device is still present in the Kindle 2, and better than ever. You are still able to access the Kindle book store and some Websites wirelessly without the need of a Wi-Fi hotspot because of Amazon’s Whispersync technology. Basically, this allows you to connect over cell phone networks for free anytime. No contracts, no connection charges, no hotspots, nothing.

However, don’t think it’s a free internet connection. Surfing the web is definitely easier with the 5-way controller, but in no way is it as easy as using a computer. It’s exceedingly nice for finding and downloading books; it’s so-so for quickly looking up a news article or a Wikipedia entry; it’s painfully complicated to do anything else.