Kindle 2 – Is It Worth It Now?

I love to read. I don;t read enough, well, there can’t be enough :) … but I wish I had more to read as my book list keeps growing faster than I read. I’m an early adopter for many tech items, but the steep price tag for the Amazon Kindle v1 was too much for me to throw at something I had no experience with. Just like the iPhone v1, I felt it was worth waiting a year to see how it fared, to see if Amazon stuck with it, see it first hand, and make sure books were going to be available in its format.

I have had a chance to play with the Kindle and recently I decided I was going to give one a try when the net version came out. I was very happy with the feel of the Kindle and most importantly to me, it was easy on my eyes. Often with books I hold them with one hand at a time laying down, sitting, standing at the exercise machine … trying to stay comfortable. Sometimes my eyes get tired and I wish I could increase the font size. My biggest hurdle to the Kindle was my uneasiness over the strain it might put on my eyes. In the brief time I borrowed a Kindle v1, I was amazed at the screen. I am so used to LCD’s with their backlighting that I assumed my eyes would hurt, but they did not. So I will be giving the Kindle v2 a shot … I pre-ordered one on Amazon yesterday, hoping to get one when they are released on February 24th. I’ll be reviewing it on my blog as I go through the motions with it.

You can read more about the Kindle 2 at Amazon, but the highlights to me of the new version are:

- Reported longer battery life

- Reported ability to read PDF and Word documents

- More storage

- Large selection of books

- Slimmer form factor (no more angular geometric shapes. Now thin and sleek)