Amazon Kindle 2 Review
We reviewed the Amazon Kindle back in January of last year, and now Amazon is back with the Kindle 2. With an improved display (although not larger), sleek new design, and a new navigation joystick, plus text-to-speech, does the Amazon Kindle 2 win our praise? Read on after the break for more details and our final opinion.
While there aren't as many improvements as people had hoped for, the new design is a welcome enhancement. The new display now has 16 shades of grey instead of four and makes text appear crisper and clearer. Page turns are also 20% faster than the original Kindle display. Check out the video below showing you a 360-degree spin of the new Kindle 2 design.
Gone is the SD expansion slot, replaced with 2GB of on-board memory. This isn't a huge deal, since it's enough to store over 1,500 books. In terms of software features, not much has changed besides tweaking location of certain functions such as search, which has now been relocated to a search bar at the bottom of your screen. One new feature, the only major one at least, is the addition of text-to-speech.
Any newspaper, magazine, book, or blog can be read out loud and pages turn automatically when being read, so you can sit back, relax, and enjoy your favorite book. We're still wondering why Amazon hasn't built in a backlight or a reading light, because reading the Kindle is virtually impossible in dim lighting. The battery isn't user-replaceable either, which shouldn't be a problem, but eventually it will need to be replaced. The process costs $80 to send the device to Amazon, and the process doesn't replace the battery, but replaces the entire Kindle.
If you're an avid reader, by all means, go out and get a Kindle. Buy it today from Amazon.com for $360 with free shipping. Still a hefty price, but well worth it for bookworms. We'll be taking a look at the Kindle DX soon too.
Pros
- Enhanced design.
- New crisper and clearer display.
- Text-to speech functionality.
Cons
- No backlight.
- Still somewhat expensive.
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