Kindle 2 review on Wired.com

[Tectonic]

Wired has a decent review of the Kindle 2. It's quite favorable though the author points out that it has no chance of becoming the ipod of ebook readers.

http://www.wired.com/reviews/product/kindle2

I would say that the reasons why it won't become universally popular is rather simple: it doesn't sell outside the USA. On top of this, the ebooks are still too expensive in the eyes of consumers to justify the switch.

Slowly the market is ripening for a major player to sweep it entirely and take all the glory. We'll see what happens in the next 3 years. It should be interesting.

Competition is good!

[Ervserver]

The number keeps growing....

The Kindle 2 is zippier, with pages turning 20 percent faster (yes, you can tell the difference). It has more memory (2 gigabytes, enough for storing up to 2500 books onboard)

[TadW]

So he doesn't bother about the fact that SD Card support was removed? Wise guy. I think external memory for dedicated e-book readers is overrated, given sufficient internal memory.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by TadW

So he doesn't bother about the fact that SD Card support was removed? Wise guy. I think external memory for dedicated e-book readers is overrated, given sufficient internal memory.

You gotta remember... Most of these reviewers aren't literate enough to enjoy more than 5-10 books over their lifetime. Thus, having the capacity for 1,000, 1,500 or even 2,500 ebooks in one, fully-destructible, device, without any on-hand backup for use in another device just doesn't make any sense to them.

These are the same people who listen to President Obama talk about 'reducing the deficit' by 50% while totally ignoring the FACT that he's helped to *increase* it by $787 BILLION in one stroke of the pen.

Yep. Black is White. Slavery is Freedom. Ignorance is Education.

Derek

[bwaldron]

Originally Posted by Tectonic

the author points out that it has no chance of becoming the ipod of ebook readers

I am so very tired of seeing iPod references in seemingly every article and blog post about the Kindle.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by bwaldron

I am so very tired of seeing iPod references in seemingly every article and blog post about the Kindle.

He meant to say Pomegranate.

[Lemurion]

I'm another who isn't really bothered by the lack of external storage.

For one thing, even though I have separate eReader and Mobi libraries on my Palm T|X neither comes near to using the space on the Kindle, and both programs seem to balk at big libraries anyway, and that's ignoring the flat library structure.

Barring a major change in how eBook readers organize content, I'm not too concerned with the storage limits on the Kindle. I also find that internal storage is generally faster and more stable anyway. Being able to swap content would be nice - but it's not a requirement.

[TadW]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

I also find that internal storage is generally faster and more stable anyway.

Plus: It requires less battery.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by TadW

Plus: It requires less battery.

Yep - another bonus

[PhishStyx]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

These are the same people who listen to President Obama talk about 'reducing the deficit' by 50% while totally ignoring the FACT that he's helped to *increase* it by $787 BILLION in one stroke of the pen.

Yep. Black is White. Slavery is Freedom. Ignorance is Education.

Derek

Random much?

[ankayeb]

I personally am bothered by the lack of a SD card slot in the new kindle. I currently carry all of my non-amazon purchased content (personal files, free ebooks, etc) on my SD card -- stuff that I can't delete to "make room" and then re-download if I want to read it. I can pop it in, copy off what I want to read, and then remove it again, not using much battery at all. Doing that keeps down the number of pages of books I have in my library and yet I can still have my "whole" library with me, including files that may be larger than average due to a multitude of pictures.

Not to mention that one of the touted "features" of the kindle is the ability to play music while you read, or play audio books. Yes, you can use your MP3 player to do that, but only having 1.5 gb of user available space really restricts the use of this "feature"

[Ervserver]

Memory is dirt cheap, Amazon could have easily loaded up the Kindle II with tons of internal memory, I'm thinking the Kindle operating system has issues with memory much above 2 GB

[Moejoe]

The more I hear about the Kindle the less impressive it is. No SD, no UK sales, DRM, no support for Epub (yet). They've walled that garden up nice and tight.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

The more I hear about the Kindle the less impressive it is. No SD, no UK sales, DRM, no support for Epub (yet). They've walled that garden up nice and tight.

Impressiveness is definitely in the eye of the beholder.

The Kindle 2 has actually managed to win me over from wanting a Sony. Things like DRM aren't that annoying because I can strip it when necessary, so any content I own can be put on the Kindle without too much trouble.

What has won me over is that the K2 has the best screen of any of the E-Ink readers. I was going to buy a 505 - but now I'm going for a K2 because it has a better screen. For me that's the single most important feature.

Other people are concerned about other features - but for me it's all about the screen.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

Impressiveness is definitely in the eye of the beholder.

The Kindle 2 has actually managed to win me over from wanting a Sony. Things like DRM aren't that annoying because I can strip it when necessary, so any content I own can be put on the Kindle without too much trouble.

What has won me over is that the K2 has the best screen of any of the E-Ink readers. I was going to buy a 505 - but now I'm going for a K2 because it has a better screen. For me that's the single most important feature.

Other people are concerned about other features - but for me it's all about the screen.

If you are buying a K2 because it has a better screen then the 505, then you are incorrect. The K2 and he 505 use exactly the same screen. The only difference is that the K2 has 16 shades and the 505 has 8. But, the 505 has very good dithering routines so you probably would never know the difference.