Kindle 2 makes debut; mixed reviews

by TDH | February 10, 2009 at 10:05 am

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The first batch of thinner, lighter, and more efficient Kinlde 2 digital readers from Amazon are scheduled for a February 24 delivery.

Those select few who had the opportunity to play with the reader, as well as Amazon.com reviewers who have already chimed in on the new products' specs, have given mixed accounts of the Kindle 2.

Some of the original Kindle users are all for the advancements,

Gary Anderson says: Yes, definitely upgrade. The new Kindle 2 is far better.

Thinner: 0.36 inches thick, 25% thinner than an iPhone
Quicker: Turns pages 20% faster
Longer lasting: 25% increase in battery life
Better display: 16 shades of gray (was 4)
Bigger memory: Stores up to 1,500 books
Bigger vocabulary: Built-in 250,000 dictionary
Better navigation: With a 5-way joystick
More vocal: Able to read text aloud in a semi-robotic voice
Less accident prone: The page-turn buttons are smaller and harder to hit by mistake
More wired: New Whispersync technology (more below)

But others still aren't convinced that Amazon has it right yet,

James Ridgway says: Personally I find that Amazon has taken one step forward and two steps back - here's why:

1. They took away SD card support. Sorry - but I enjoy SD card support and demand it for future kindle devices.

2. They have yet to support user-defined folders for sorting content - how fun is it to sort through over a thousand titles?!

3. The Sony reader - which I don't like - has always had the ability to upload user photos - where is this functionality for the kindle?

Sorry Amazon - poor attempt - all they did was address the form and took away some of the function. Bad form!

The "read to me" feature, one of the touted "experimental" updates, allows one to have their text read to them by a strikingly digital voice,

The second is called "Read-to-me," a new "experimental" feature that allows you to have text read to you (this would come in handy if you were driving, for instance). In the onstage demo, the reading sounded really good, but in my brief tests there was still a pronounced robotic element to it. In other words, don't expect to get a true audiobook experience, though you can choose between a male or female digitized voice.

Hardly a David Attenborough, or Morgan Freeman...

As with all gadgets, there will be followers and naysayers, but in the end it all comes down user preference. Only time will tell if this particular gadget survives.

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