Amazon's new Kindle 2, embarrasses the first Kindle with a multitude of advancements. The newest version can turn pages quicker, has a better casing, a vastly improved web feel and 7x the memory.
I'm have always been a techno pioneer; I have recommended the BlackBerry Storm, the first iPhone, and even the VooDoo Envy. And the latest Kindle is my new love. Let me count the ways...in review.
First off, the enhanced screen. It's quite useful when checking out your favorite Web pages on the Kindle's browser. From the start, Kindles have come equipped with wireless cell phone radios that make it possible, even effortless to download your books of choice from anywhere. Finally that power of the in-case radio is being utilized to the fullest, with an HTML browser capable of seeing web pages in excellent looking 16 shade grayscale. Sure, they may remind you of Web pages from 1998, as the Kindle 2 can't render some of the latest graphics and cutting edge code that we're used to today, but this is a reader, not a futuristic Game-boy.
Next is the Kindle 2's capability to allow you to view a wide variety of documents types. No longer are you restricted to just magazines, books, and newspapers. The original Kindle supported Microsoft Word files, which was fine. But now the latest release is capable of displaying Microsoft Word, TXT, BMP, PDF, GIF, HTML,JPEG, PNG, and even MOBI files. This gives it serious potential to act as your document repository. All you have to do is email them to your assigned email address, and they are automatically loaded via the Whispernet wireless connection to your You load them by emailing them from your computer to your Kindle's dedicated email address, where they are wirelessly synced to your Kindle.
The keyboard is also improved, albeit not optimally. It's new 5-way directional button beats the old Kindle's scroll wheel by a mile. However, I'll admit I'm not completely sold on it. Not sure what a better solution would be, but this reminds me a bit of a red eraser-type mouse that that came on some PC laptops.
Now you don't have to pay the dime to email your work documents to your device. You can now load docs (as well as MP3s) for free. Just use the USB cable that comes with the Kindle (and also is a wall charger). This USB has a capacity of one and a half GB, and with the average electronic item weighing in at about 1MB, that equates to about 1500 'books'. Not bad.
Can't hold the book because you're cooking, or just want to get a little shut-eye but not fall asleep? Have the Kindle 2 read the novel to you. Turning text to speech has the promise of making reading more fluid than people have been exposed to. Read in the car or bus then use your headphones and listen to the book while walking. You can read the book in the hammock, and as the sun sets, continue to listen to the story as you lie there sipping your mint julep.
My daughter loves the on screen dictionary display, as it shows the definition of a word by simply hovering over it, AND the speech feature then can let her know how it's pronounced.
Oh did I mention that Amazon originally debuted the Kindle at $360 in February, but now it's at $259 in anticipation of the holiday season. It's their number one seller, so I doubt it'll get cheaper anytime soon. I paid the full $360 for mine as I couldn't resist having the latest and greatest (I'm a sucker for high-tech immediate gratification), but I'll be picking up one of those $259 ones for my mom as an early Christmas gift. She is going on a 4 week trip to visit her sister in Australia and those flights are real looong.
Dylan Thomas is an english teacher whose love for reading is only rivaled by his daughter's. Hear what Kindle users have to say about it in these Reviews and find out where to buy kindle. All new Kindles are the same price as they are exclusively offered by Amazon. Buy from the trusted source, and Give the Gift of Reading
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