The Amazon Kindle 2 is an impressive piece of technology, and Amazon should be proud. Much like Apple's success with the iPod, Amazon is crafting a successful brand by not only offering good hardware, but by supporting it with a software backbone.
I would love to see a touch screen, more elegant interface, and support for an open publishing platform (like ePub), but those things will come in time. Even now, the Kindle 2 is a darn good read.
Amazon.com has fixed the worst design flaws in the Kindle, its popular electronic-book reader, while maintaining the excellent book-buying experience that made the first Kindle model tolerable despite those problems.
In the end, we heartily recommend the Amazon Kindle 2 over any other e-reader.
Overall, the Kindle 2 is a gorgeous looking device that makes digital book reading a joy. For those looking to make the jump into the digital book reading experience, the Kindle 2 is an excellent choice and the experience it provides will be tough to match with a competitive reader.
Overall, the Kindle 2 addresses the key problems with the original, boosts performance and points to some interesting directions. Now we're a little bit further down the road toward e-book Nirvana.
Amazon calls it the Kindle 2, but Kindle 1.1 would be more like it; the changes are fairly minor. Fortunately, they’re exactly what was needed to turn a very good reader into an even better one.
While it's still short of perfection--and has a price tag that's too high--the Amazon Kindle 2 offers a range of improvements that makes it the best overall e-book reader we've seen to date.
A mostly cosmetic upgrade, the Kindle 2 is just another step towards some revolution in reading that none of us, not even Amazon chief visionary Jeff Bezos, can yet see or understand.
While it lacks books' individuality and charm, it adds features such as the ability to annotate and search ebooks, and look up words in a dictionary. It's a good device. Not yet great, but good.
In the end, Amazon will need to do more with the next version to make waves. But even with its flaws and foibles, the Kindle 2 is a good reader's companion.
The bottom line is that—if you can afford it—the Kindle 2 looks great and works well.
The Kindle 2 delivers an enjoyable experience with noticeable leaps in usability, and big leaps in industrial design. If you travel lightly, are a voracious reader, and absolutely love gadgets, you'll probably get this device. Is that everyone? No... but it's a lot of people we know.
The Amazon Kindle is a great quality device that currently offers a unique service. Wirelessly connecting to the bookstore and letting you get your content is certainly a simple approach, with that added advantage of letting you browse content on the website to send to your Kindle, as well as reading on your iPhone or BlackBerry if you want to.
